sluggish start as loss to the Saints

City are sinners again in a

- By ALEX DICKEN

CHRIS Davies has lamented Birmingham City's sluggish start in their 3-1 defeat to Southampton and admitted 'we weren't strong enough.

Southampton raced into a two-goal lead at St Mary's thanks to goals from Finn Azaz and Adam Armstrong to give Blues another mountain to climb away from home.

Blues have conceded the first goal in nine of their 10 Championship away games and eight of those openers have arrived in the first half.

Davies said: "It was always going to be a challenge but in the first 20 minutes we weren't strong enough physically or quick enough onto the ball and we paid the price.

"We gave ourselves a mountain to climb at 2-0 down against a team with a lot of good players.

"That first 20 minutes was not what we've been talking about or what we wanted to deliver in terms of solidity and strength in that period away from home.

"They had a few moments that we had to defend better. We had a lot of blue shirts back on both the goals so it wasn’t that we got opened up. We were there in numbers, we just didn’t do enough to keep the ball out of our goal.

"Then after that, I think there was a game with a lot of positives. I think we really took the game to them, we were good, there were a lot of things I liked about our performance.

"We were moving the ball well, getting territory and good situations. In the second half, with more intensity and aggression we came out on the front foot, scored a good goal, then you think 'here we go!