McLeish salutes Zarate kid

Blues manager pleased with South American star

By Hayley Paterson   Last updated: 29th March 2008

Footballl Premier League Birmingham Man City Mauro Zarate

Zarate: Brace for Blues

Related links

Teams

Players

Also see

Birmingham boss Alex McLeish praised his team saying on-loan star Mauro Zarate's finishing was "sublime" to kill off Man City 3-1.

The Scotsman urged everyone to get behind his side after the club's previous three games without a win, and saluted his players for bouncing back.

"People were pessimistic after last week's result, in seven days it can all change again and that's the way it's actually happened," he said.

"We must keep being positive, the Birmingham fans and everyone associated with the club because I think the players gave a really positive performance."

Lobbed

The Blues were dominant throughout the game and got their just rewards when Zarate lobbed Joe Hart from Franck Queudrue's throughball.

The Argentinian doubled the lead with a superb finish into the bottom corner leaving McLeish happy with his on-loan striker.

He said: "I'm not going to tell him what to do when he gets the ball at his feet because he's got fantastic talent, his finishing today was absolutely sublime, the type of finishing associated with many foreign players - especially the South Americans."

Sour ending

Birmingham's sour ending of the game came when Queudrue was sent off after his back-pass fell to Benjani and then his last-ditch tackle brought down the Zimbabwe international.

"I think City were dead and buried by then and we felt strong, it was a powerful performance by us.

"He (Queudrue) is gutted, despite that he had a great game, unfortunately that lead to the goal but it was a stalwart performance from Franck Queudrue."

Elano netted the resulting penalty and then more controversy followed when Man City's Sun Jihai was deemed to have fouled Gary McSheffrey, who stepped up to take the spot-kick for 3-1.