Luton chief not reading anything into Blues' poor run of form ahead of St Andrew's trip

Luton boss Rob Edwards wasn’t reading too much into Birmingham’s poor run of form ahead of their trip to St Andrew’s this afternoon.

After a tough run since the turn of the new year, the Blues losing all three Championship games, to slide down the table once more, they then won back to back games, 4-3 at Swansea and 2-0 against play-off challengers West Bromwich Albion.

Any thoughts of the victories leading to a change in fortunes were swiftly extinguished though by three defeats in a row, John Eustace’s side beaten 2-0 by Cardiff and then losing 2-1 at Huddersfield and 3-1 at Norwich City, meaning they sit in 19th place, just seven points away from the bottom three.

However, Edwards, whose team have very different aspirations this term, with a win potentially moving them up to fourth, said: “It’s another really difficult one, a typical Championship test.

“I know they may have lost their last three games but they have been really tight games as well.

"Their last game against Norwich they had a right good go.

"Carrow Road is a difficult place to go as everyone knows, they ran, they worked really hard, they were positive and like normal we’re going to have to be ready to defend against some direct play.

"They’re good dealing in transitions, they have some very good athletes in their team and they can play with real high intensity and energy.

"They have good individuals as well.

"I know they have one or two injuries but there could be a couple of people coming back that they have missed in recent weeks as well.

"It’s going to be another really difficult game, we have to go into it with the same mentality as we did against Burnley last weekend.

"That is what we’ve got to do for the final 14 games now but this game right now is the most important one.

"We’re really looking forward to it, it’s an opportunity for us to get back to winning ways as this last week has been frustrating in terms of points gained but I have been really pleased with how we have played but we want to try and play well and get the points.”

Even though Blues are in poor form and have a number of injuries, with Reda Khadra, Troy Deeney, Jobe Bellingham and Dion Sanderson all set to miss out, they do have a striker with double figures to his name in Scott Hogan, who has 10 goals from 28 starts this term.

Edwards continued: “They’ve got some very good individuals, (Lukas) Jutkiewicz, (Scott) Hogan.

"However they play, Hannibal’s (Mejbri) played higher recently, (Juninho) Bacuna’s a good player, (Kristian) Bielik, if he's back fit, you can go through the team and they have a lot, some good young players or some experienced one who’ve been around a lot.

“It’ll be another real challenging game.

"They’ve got some very, very good players,”

While Birmingham were losing at Norwich on Tuesday night, Town had the rare chance to put their feet up, without a midweek match for the first time in three weeks.

On the mini break in second tier action for his players, Edwards added: “It has been nice to have a free week.

"I was able to go and watch a game on Tuesday and we’ve been able to get some good training in and a little bit of recovery earlier in the week because it has been a really tough period for the lads.

“There hasn’t been that much that hasn’t gone our way though.

"The lads have been great so it has been about trying to build on those good performances.”