WHILST performances at home have been poor in recent weeks, City continue to pick up points on their travels with a latest away day win coming at Birmingham City on Saturday, writes Will Collins.

Blues had been unbeaten at St Andrews since March before City’s visit. But we left with a second successive away win and now have a total of five wins on the road compared with just three at Ashton Gate.

I think the reason for our impressive away form and inconsistent home form lies in the fact that this season our strength is in our defensive abilities as opposed to our attacking ones. Having lost Reid, Flint and Bryan in the summer who cumulatively contributed a significant number of goals to the team we have struggled to replace these goals but instead have an impressive backline that has now kept seven clean sheets this season.

Although we only created a handful of chances at Birmingham, we also restricted the home side to few opportunities. Jutkiewicz had Birmingham's best effort, but his header from Mahoney's free-kick struck the post. City’s winner and the only goal of the game came on 63 minutes. O’Dowda’s corner was met at the near post by Diedhiou who powered an unstoppable header past Camp in the Blues goal.

City saw out the game comfortably and we looked really well-drilled as a defensive unit. We are now 13th in the Championship and if we are going to challenge for the play-offs then we’ll need to add some goals to the team in the January transfer window. A striker must be the priority.

This Saturday City host league-leaders Norwich City at Ashton Gate in a game that will be shown live on Sky Sports (5.30pm). The Canaries have been in excellent form of late having won eight of their last nine Championship fixtures. They score a lot of goals so City’s defence will be tested once more.