Darren Moore saluted “10 out of 10 performances” from his entire side as Port Vale dumped Birmingham out of the Carabao Cup with a 1-0 win at St Andrew’s.
The Valiants’ boss was delighted as Jaheim Headley’s header on the stroke of half-time earned the visitors a deserved victory.
The left-back nodded home Ryan Croasdale’s cross on the stroke of half-time after a period of sustained pressure on James Beadle’s goal reaped reward.
Vale had by far the better of the chances on an evening when the hosts were decidedly below-par.
Moore said: “I said to the boys if ever you want to see quality, then we’re going to come up against it – so we needed 10 out of 10 performances right across the team – and we got that.
“It was a satisfactory performance both off the ball because of the questions they asked – and then on the ball to take the moments that came our way.
“I was really pleased because we have been working really hard since the weekend because we know how important set-piece goals are.
“We looked dangerous every time we had one. You could feel the edginess from their home crowd. They defended heroically but we managed to find a way to goal.”
Birmingham boss Chris Davies made 10 changes from the team that defeated Oxford but admitted his side struggled.
He said: “We suffered. We couldn’t create enough chances to score – we didn’t have our usual rhythm.
“We were less fluid than usual. It’s not an excuse.
“I thought this was a good opportunity to play some of the players who haven’t had many minutes because you are never going to know about players unless you play them.”
