'Many moons ago' - Gary Rowett reacts to Birmingham City's Blackpool thrashing

Gary Rowett knows what it is to be a Birmingham City manager coming off an embarrassing defeat. The 48-year-old spent a couple of seasons in charge of Blues and remembers taking over the reins just days after the team had been beaten 8-0 by Bournemouth.

His first match, in November 2014, was away to promotion-chasing Wolves where he oversaw an impressive 0-0 draw and the perfect response to the shambolic events of the week before. Rowett returns to St Andrew's this weekend mindful of that experience.

The former Blues defender is now manager of play-off hopefuls Millwall and is back on his former stomping ground to face a side that lost 6-1 to Blackpool on Easter Monday. He does so mindful of a backlash and praising Blues' players.

"It's going to be a good game, it's a former club of mine, I know that their fans will be smarting a little bit from their defeat in the last game, I am sure the team will be desperate to put that right in front of their fans, running out of games to play in front of your home support. so it will be a challenge," Rowett told Millwall's video platform Recast.

"It will be like any other game, we won't go there thinking in any way, shape or form just because Birmingham are not in a great position in the league for them, we won't take anything lightly. We are not that type of team, we have to go and perform, we have to go and respect our opposition and we have got to fight for every blade of grass that we can get.

"It's as simple as that, if we do that we give ourselves a very good chance of getting a result and then we will sit back and relax and hope the results help us out as well. I think the Championship being described as one of the toughest, most competitive leagues in the world, the