Birmingham City manager Lee Bowyer explains what he was saying to Jordan Graham in Blackpool win

Birmingham City manager Lee Bowyer has revealed the conversations that he was having with Jordan Graham during the first-half of Blues’ 1-0 win over Blackpool.

Graham was playing his first game for a few weeks after returning from injury and looked to be on the end of a number of stern words from the gaffer through the first 45.

And Bowyer admits that he had to have a good chat with him at half-time to correct a few things he felt the wing-back was doing wrong.

“When you play like that, your wing-backs have to be brave,” explained the manager.

“Bela & Jordan - as a wing-back when you play against a back four like that today, they end up in their natural positions because they press the full-backs.

“But centre-halves want protection so what they do is they then keep hold of the wing-backs, so that’s why their full-back kept getting up early on in the game first-half.

“But then at half-time I said to him, ‘no no no, you leave the centre-halves, forget them. You have to release earlier, you have to be putting pressure on the ball. We’re pressing, our strikers are pressing and then they are getting out because you are too far back, what are you doing back there.’

“So it was just a case of tidying up a few things and he was much better second-half.”

And credit where it’s due, Graham was much better in the second-half - looking far more of a threat going forward.

Bowyer also revealed that the wing-back broke down with around 10 minutes to play due to a lack of minutes but felt it was unfair to bring Marcel Oakley on in such testing circumstances.

Luckily for the Blues, they now have a week break to rest and recover before heading to Millwall on December 4th.

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