The four Birmingham City changes Lee Bowyer will make at Swansea City

Short up top, not much at the back but plenty to trim in the middle. No, not another bizarre footballer’s haircut but Lee Bowyer’s Birmingham City selection quandary.

The head coach has once more been denied key defenders and must go to Swansea without Teden Mengi and Kristian Pedersen after a recurrence of a hamstring injury laid waste to the rest of the Manchester United loanee’s season and the only left back in the squad picked up a ban for his sending off against Middlesbrough.

The scenario isn’t much better up front and once more that leaves Blues in a suboptimal situation of having to shoehorn players into unfamiliar positions. So what will Bowyer do? We try to predict...

With Maxime Colin likely to have to play centre back Blues don’t have any established senior full backs which seems to take a four-man defence off the table. Once again it seems the only option is three central defenders and winger backs in what will probably be a 5-3-2.

It picks itself. Neil Etheridge continues, with Colin having to play 90 minutes alongside Marc Roberts and Nico Gordon. Onel Hernandez and Jordan Graham start at wing back.

The one place where there are plenty of directions in which Bowyer could go. Gary Gardner is the captain and will retain the armband, After that it depends if you want to press the Championship’s most possession-based team when they have the ball or try to keep it from them. Ivan Sunjic or Ryan Woods. Probably Sunjic.

The third midfielder is likely to be a creative sort - Juninho Bacuna after his midweek ‘rest’ or perhaps Taylor Richards who against Middlesbrough looked like a young man who hadn’t started a competitive game since September. Bacuna will probably get the nod.

Bowyer speaks glowingly of