Division One: Birmingham City v Blackburn Rovers - Peter White's match preview

AS Glenn Hoddle might have said, Birmingham City's Dele Adebola is playing like a born-again striker.

Top scorer for the Blues of St Andrews last season, with 17 First Division strikes, Adebola endured a torrid time pre-millennium but, in recent weeks, has started to emerge as an old familiar force in the City attack.

Two games back in the frame have brought two Adebola strikes, against his old club Crewe Alexandra and Bolton - allied to a fine all-round performance against Wanderers on Saturday.

A stress fracture, allied to a difference of opinion with manager Trevor Francis over playing styles, meant few senior starts for the man who cost Birmingham £1 million from Gresty Road.

But, finally, it is all starting to come together and thoughts of leaving St Andrews for a loan spell - Portsmouth and Forest were both interested at one stage - have now been dispelled.

Adebola had asked for the switch, simply out of frustration at being on the bench.

"It wasn't a case of me wanting to leave Birmingham for good," he ex-plained.

"I just felt I needed to go out on loan to get some sharpness.

"I also talked to the manager about coming off the bench and he perhaps expected me to do a lot more than I did.

"But all that's rectified now."

So too, it seems, have the tactical problems, where Adebola prefers to run at defenders, rather than chase balls played in behind them. "At Crewe, I used to get the ball short, turn and run at people," he said. "I was always involved in that part of the game. Maybe I have come away from that this season.

"We talked about it and now I am happier and I am feeling very positive."

At one stage this season, Birmingham suffered a serious shortage of strikers through injuries.

But front pair Adebola and Isiah Rankin both scored on Saturday to notch up Birmingham's fourth successive home victory and move into the final play-off place.

Adebola has only scored three League goals so far this season, two of them in the last two games, but his clubmates clearly believe he has a major part to play in a promotion push.

Injured forward Peter Ndlovu has certainly welcomed his colleague's long-awaited return to top form.

"It's like having a new player," he said. "Dele has had a bad time of it this season. But, hopefully, he's coming through it now.

"If he goes on playing like he has done in the last two matches then he's going to be the old Dele who used to cause defences lots of problems.

"I think he has to play well enough so that the papers write proper things about him.

"All he needed was a goal and he can go on to realise the potential we all know he has."

Rovers fans will be hoping he waits a while longer before doing that.

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