Blues boss Paul Jewell says last night’s performance in the 1-1 draw at Brighton illustrates that the players are still giving him everything they’ve got even if he’s been made fully aware that he’s not flavour of the month with all supporters at present.
Speaking after last night’s game, Jewell said: "I’m a big boy, I’ve been around the block before and I know what’s going on.
"A guy told me to resign as I got off the coach today. It was quite interesting because he told me to resign after I’d turned round the corner. I thought that it was really brave of him, and I told him.
"But I understand that’s the way people are at the moment. However, you can see that the players are giving everything they’ve got.
"When that’s in question, when the players aren’t giving everything they’ve got, that’s when you need to move on. But I don’t think the players, even in the defeats we’ve had when we haven’t played great, I don’t think they’ve ever thrown the towel in.”
Looking ahead to Saturday’s live Sky game (KO 5.20pm) against Cardiff — who took over from Brighton at the top of the Championship last night - the Blues boss, whose side are without a win in eight games and haven’t won at home since March 31st, is looking for his team to end those runs: "It’s a big game. Every game in this league is difficult in its own way.
"Cardiff have spent a lot of money, as a lot of clubs in this league have, and they’re going to expect to be up the top.
"We’ve got to try and match them and hopefully we can put on a decent show for our home supporters because our home results haven’t been what we’ve wanted, even though I think there have been some decent performances.
"Even in the Wolves game we created a host of opportunities, but we got punished for not taking them.”
Brighton boss Gus Poyet says opposition teams are beginning to come to the Amex Stadium with the same gameplan: "I'm starting to think everybody is rating us higher than we are.
"They rate us as a top team in this division and come here with a plan, to nick a goal and defend. That makes us put in all the effort. It becomes all about us and you need quality for that.
"But we need to get used to that because it is going to be the plan for every team that comes to the Amex.
"I can't ask for more. We took risks, we played with one defender and went for the win. It worked for Birmingham and it nearly worked for Ipswich, so credit to them."