Blues boss Paul Jewell says he’s hopeful that loan midfielder Jimmy Bullard will be fit for Saturday’s trip to Leeds United. The 32-year-old missed last night’s 3-1 defeat to Reading with a hamstring injury.

Jewell said: "I know Jimmy from old and if he could have played he would have but we had to make the decision to leave him out. Hopefully he might be OK for Saturday.

"We certainly missed him against Reading. He was a big loss for us. He's been the fulcrum of everything we have been doing, so it was a big disappointment that he wasn't out there."

The Town boss felt that last night’s performance showed why the Blues find themselves firmly in mid-table: “I think this is probably why we are where we are in the league.

“We’ve had some really good performances and I’m not going to come out here and slate the players because they’ve been terrific in the main since I’ve been here.

“But you get performances like that as a manager and you think ‘Where did that come from? I didn’t see that’.

“It was so quiet, it was like a reserve game. There was no tempo to our play, we didn’t give our crowd anything to shout about, we didn’t get close to them, we didn’t make any tackles, we didn’t pass it.

“Everything that we did in the second half on Saturday and have done for the majority of the time I’ve been here, we just didn’t do.”

Jewell had praise for Connor Wickham for scoring his late goal, but says it came too late and thought his attackers were put in the shade by Reading’s Shane Long: “It was a terrific goal but we needed someone to do that when it’s 0-0.

“I think Long is an outstanding player for them. He never stops running, he’s always at you, he’s good in the air, he makes clever runs and is always a threat, putting you on your back foot.

“We didn’t have that from anybody. There was no zip and no zest from anybody and I’m at a loss to explain it.”

Story syndicated from TWTD.co.uk

Photo: Action Images

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