Birmingham City boss Alex McLeish believes a good ranking on the table will boost their January market hopes.

A lofty league position would give McLeish a better chance of tempting his top targets to come to St Andrew's when the transfer window swings open in January.

"There's no doubt that your league position will make you look attractive to a player that you're maybe trying to attract," McLeish told the Sunday Mercury. "But as we know in this Premier League you can catapult up this league with one big victory. You see poor Phil Brown getting it in the neck but he's up besides us, it's so fickle this game.

"We've maybe escaped criticism because our performance level has been excellent. Phil's maybe not had some good performances but now he's getting them.

"That's the amazing thing about this league and Mick McCarthy is probably saying the same thing, they could get within a couple of points of us.

"We try to make ourselves as high up the league as possible to make us look an attractive proposition, but I suppose at the end of the day money will dictate things. I would also like to think that we would want to maintain a certain type of character for the dressing room."