Fahey pleased with Birmingham bow

Former Saint Patrick's Athletic midfielder Keith Fahey has declared himself pleased, after making his full Birmingham City debut in Tuesday night's 1-0 win over Derby County at Saint Andrew's.

Fahey, who became eligible for the Blues at the start of this month, made his first appearance for his new club almost two weeks ago as a late sub in a 1-1 draw at home to Cardiff City and again entered from the bench during last weekend's defeat away to Blackpool. However, the 26-year-old was this week finally handed his first start by manager Alex McLeish against the Rams and impressed in a full 90-minute showing.

"Making my full debut is another step for me," Fahey told Birmingham's official website. "Since I've come over, I've been working hard in training and that's my first 90 minutes at this level, so I'm quite content. It was just good for me to finally get out on the pitch, although from my own point of view, it was a bit difficult.

"It was my first game at this level and it took me a while to find my feet. Before the game, the manager called me in and said he was going to start me and he wanted me to drive on and get forward and don't really worry too much about getting back because (Lee) Carsley will sit in there. But towards the end, it didn't work out like that, I was up and down. You have to do it at both ends.

"We need to start winning games, home and away, so it's important we got the three points. I think maybe at the end we made it hard for ourselves. We had a little spell when we went 1-0 up and we could have made it 2-0 and probably could have killed them off. But after the goal, we seemed to settle down and started to knock it around a bit. We need a bit more of that from the beginning."

Fahey's manager was also delighted with his contribution. "I thought Keith did extremely well for his first game," McLeish said. "He gave us good energy and good legs in the centre of the midfield. He made some good passes and he should take a lot of confidence from that."

Birmingham's win, coupled with second-placed Reading's defeat of league leaders Wolves, means that Fahey's side are now within four points of top spot in the Championship, while they are also ten points clear of the last playoff position. Next up for the Blues is an away trip to mid-table Sheffield Wednesday this Saturday, a game which is live on Sky Sports 1 at 5.20pm, giving League of Ireland fans the chance to see the progress of the league's latest exciting export.

(Picture credit: www.blues.premiumtv.co.uk)