Wolverhampton Wanderers and Birmingham City come head to head in a West Midlands derby at Molineux on Sunday with the home side looking to climb out of the Premier League's bottom three.
Molineux plays host to what is bound to be a hotly contested match between two Premiership teams tipped to struggle at the start of the season who are in contrasting form.
The Blues are currently five points better off than Wolves in the table and sit pretty in 13th while Mick McCarthy's men struggle in 19th
Wolves haven’t won since September when they beat Fulham at home and are on a poor run of 7 Premiership matches without a victory. Whereas Birmingham are on a 4 match unbeaten run in the Premier League and picked up credible draws against Manchester City and Liverpool along the way.
The longer Mick McCarthy’s Wolves team go without a victory, the bigger the pressure will be on the manager who will be disappointed with his team’s recent performances. In their last 2 matches they have conceded 8 goals and were outclassed by both Arsenal and Chelsea, and worryingly for Wolves fans they can’t score and are shipping goals at the other end. Wolves have scored just 5 goals in 6 Premiership matches at Molineux this season.
Wolves are boosted by the return of striker Kevin Doyle for Sunday's Premier League derby against Birmingham at Molineux.
Doyle was rested for the 4-0 reversal at Chelsea last weekend after playing for the Republic of Ireland in their two-legged World Cup play-off against France.
But defender Ronald Zubar has suffered another injury setback and has been ruled out of the clash with Alex McLeish's side.
Right-back Zubar missed the game with Chelsea via a thigh strain sustained in training. The 24-year-old returned to training on Thursday but suffered an ankle setback.
Manager Alex McLeish has made his Birmingham side hard to break down and whilst it might not be very pretty, it is extremely effective.
Birmingham have picked up a bit of form going into the clash having gone four games unbeaten including wins over Sunderland and Fulham and a credible draw at home to Manchester City.
Birmingham will again be without striker Garry O'Connor and on-loan Sunderland midfielder Teemu Tainio.
O'Connor has undergone surgery on a hip problem and will be out of action for several months while Tainio will require a knee operation which will also sideline him for a lengthy period.
Club captain Damien Johnson is available after a hamstring injury but is likely to be on the substitutes' bench after the loaning out of Jordon Mutch to Hereford.
REVIEW:
Lee Bowyer was Birmingham's match-winner for the second game in succession as his second-minute strike was enough for the Blues to beat Wolves 1-0 at Molineux.
The former England midfielder, who had netted the only goal in the home clash with Fulham last time out, lifted Alex McLeish's side into 11th spot in the Barclays Premier League with his fifth goal of the campaign.
The win takes Birmingham into 11th in the table and also extended their unbeaten league run to five matches.
Blues took the lead with the first attack of the game with just 125 seconds on the clock. It was a cracking effort.
Christian Benitez and James McFadden linked up well down the right flank with some neat one-touch football before the ball was worked back to Bowyer on the edge of the box.
He spotted recalled goalkeeper Marcus Hahnemann off his line and his chip floated over the head of the former Reading player into the roof of the net.
David Edwards had the chance to level matters after 10 minutes when he got on the end of a cross from Matt Jarvis but he glanced his header past the post.
Back came Birmingham and Bowyer tried his luck from 20 yards out but Hahnemann was able to save comfortably.
Mick McCarthy decided he had to make a change and brought on Michael Kightly for Greg Halford after 32 minutes with Richard Stearman and Michael Mancienne swapping flanks in the full-back roles.
Blues had strong appeals for a penalty rejected when Jarvis appeared to bring down Dann close to the by-line.
Then Hahnemann pulled off a fine save to turn over a piledriver at full stretch from Bowyer which took a wicked deflection.
McCarthy’s men improved slightly after the break and Kevin Doyle almost gave them a lifeline with a left foot drive that flew inches wide within 30 seconds of the restart.
But Blues never allowed Wolves time to settle and the visitors rarely looked in trouble.
Wolves should have done better with two late chances, when Jarvis’s volley was denied by a flying save from Joe Hart, and when Ebanks-Blake in his 150th senior game could only guide a free header wide from Dave Edwards’s cross.
Ebanks-Blake picked up a booking at the start of four minutes of injury time and Jerome saw yellow too for a foul on Jarvis as Blues stood firm to record an impressive away victory.