Birmingham boss Alex McLeish is backing his team to regain their swagger after Sunday's disappointing 1-0 derby defeat to Wolves at Molineux. It was an afternoon to forget for Blues as they put in an uncharacteristically subdued performance to lose against Wanderers for the first time since 2001.
"I saw Wolves beat Manchester City here, and they're second in the league, it shows any team can beat anybody in this Premier League and there's no reason why we can't beat the teams who are coming up," said the Scot, with Everton, Manchester United and Arsenal lying in wait after Newcastle.
"It will be a very difficult December going into January, it's tough, but that's the challenge of the league and we're delighted to be here. We'll be up for the challenge, there's no doubt about it.
"My players have already shown their resilience in bouncing back from games.
"A few weeks ago we went into a period of games - Manchester City away, Chelsea home, Fulham away, Spurs home - and you lot (the media) had us for nothing out of 12, and we ended up with six points.
"So that's an amazing return for a team who were tipped to get nothing.
"There's no reason why we can't do that again, we've already proved it, the evidence is there. I've got a dressing room who will be hurting by the way they played in the first 60 minutes here and I'm sure they will want to atone for that as they've done many times in the past."
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