Birmingham City boss Alex McLeish admits Manchester United are a different team without Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic.

Both central defenders were missing for last night's 1-1 draw at St Andrews.

McLeish was full of pride for the way his team recovered from their lacklustre opening 45 minutes as they extended their unbeaten league run to a club record 12 games.

He said: "The dressing room was very noisy at half-time because the players knew they had not reached the standards of previous games.

"But we got a great response. We were fortunate to be leading at half-time but we were a different animal in the second half.

"United still have tremendous ability even though they are missing leaders like Vidic and Ferdinand and I was proud of the way we responded."