Saturday 23 January 2016 19:55, UK
Gary Rowett was delighted to see Birmingham beat 10-man Ipswich and fire a warning that they are now strong play-off candidates in the Sky Bet Championship.
It was Blues' first victory in nine encounters against the Tractor Boys and Rowett was pleased to follow up a 3-0 win at Derby with another convincing victory.
Birmingham made the most of the 44th-minute sending off of Jonathan Douglas, which effectively killed off any hopes of Ipswich collecting any points.
Rowett said: "You have got to enjoy it when you are in a good run of form. In the last nine games we have won five, drawn three and lost one.
"You think about the last three games - Nottingham Forest, Derby County and Ipswich. To take seven points from these three games and to concede only one goal is fantastic.
"It was a difficult game against Ipswich. One or two decisions can change a game and fortunately they went for us."
Rowett revealed that it had not been his intention to include new loan signing Will Buckley because of his lack of fitness but was forced to draft in the Sunderland winger because Jacques Maghoma had been taken ill just before the game.
The Birmingham manager added: "I thought Buckley was excellent. He is a player that has something to prove as things have not worked out for him at Sunderland.
"He had a spell at Leeds where it didn't go well for him. He is the type of player I like because you can sense an extra motivation to come and kick-start his career. He has good quality. Anyone who saw him in his best days at Brighton two years ago knows he is an excellent player."
On the crucial sending off, Rowett admitted: "I wasn't sure it was a sending-off tackle. It didn't look a great challenge but we had a little bit of fortune with the sending-off.
"It made us a little nervous early in the second half and when it looked as if Ipswich had their tails up, Jon Toral comes up with a fantastic goal."
Buckley fully justified Rowett's praise with an outstanding debut, marking his first appearance with an opportunist opening goal after 23 minutes to give Birmingham the upper hand.
A minute before half-time Buckley was involved in the incident which changed the whole course of the game.
Douglas lunged in with a poor challenge which resulted in an immediate red card from referee Michael Bull.
This changed the whole course of the game which was settled by two superb long-range goals from Toral and Maikel Kieftenbeld.
Ipswich were always prepared to take Birmingham head-on and created several good goalscoring opportunities but they had no answer to Birmingham's finishing power.
Ipswich boss Mick McCarthy was not totally disillusioned by the result. "I thought Birmingham played well and the game was fairly even until the sending-off which changed the game," he admitted.
"I didn't think it was a sending-off. The tackle looked worse than it was. I've seen worse tackles. I thought at half-time we could change it around but we were outdone by two bombshells which were fabulous strikes.
"There was nothing we could do about the shots. They don't come very often in a season but unfortunately they came against us.
"The result of 3-0 looks as if we have been slapped but we haven't, even with 10 men. I am not leaving Birmingham thinking we were dreadful and we were not competitive. In fact, it was just the opposite. Circumstances have tarnished the result but not the performance."
