King expecting much-improved showing

Marlon King has promised a different Birmingham as they look to overturn a 1-0 deficit in the play-off semi-final second leg.

A below-par Blues were second best at Bloomfield Road on Friday night as the Seasiders claimed a slender advantage to take to St Andrew's, Tom Ince's speculative long-range drive deflecting off Curtis Davies for the only goal of the game. Kevin Phillips, Gary Taylor-Fletcher and Stephen Dobbie all had great chances to add to the scoreline but Birmingham could easily have nicked a draw at the close, King himself clipping the woodwork for a second time on the night when he really should have done better. And the 18-goal striker, who is bidding to become the first City striker to reach 20 goals in a season since Steve Claridge in the mid-1990's, is backing Blues to put on a much-improved showing. "We'll look at the first game and know we were nowhere near where we should be," he said. "We've put it right on the training ground and I think the boys are hungry and raring to go. Wednesday night should be a different game." Asked about the mood among the squad after Friday's result, King added: "It was disappointing, but we knew that we had chances and we're going to get more chances. I hit the woodwork twice and on another night they could have gone in. But we know we weren't anywhere near where we can be, where we should be - we want to put that right."