As Rooney devises the ideal Birmingham City strategy, the 27-year-old star embraces unwelcome change…

Birmingham City produced their most complete performance under Wayne Rooney on Wednesday night to finally end their away-day misery.

Juninho Bacuna scored the only goal against Cardiff City to gift Rooney his second win in his 10th game in charge of the Blues. By winning for the first time at Cardiff City Stadium, the Blues ended a sequence of eight successive away defeats.

It also eased some of the angst in the stands. Blues supporters will be feeling more warm towards Rooney today than they were at this time yesterday.

There was a game plan, and it worked perfectly. As Rooney pointed out afterwards, though, this needs to be the start of better things, not a one-off.

About that game plan…

Rooney emphasised the importance of staying in the game at his pre-match press conference. He was convinced that Cardiff wouldn’t have the quality to blow the Blues away and that his players could edge a tight game.

They did that by remaining solid, playing sensible percentage passes, and producing one clinical counter-attack. “We were working on going from one side of the pitch to the other; Lee Buchanan got a good chance from that and Bacca got his goal from that,” explained Rooney.

“We stayed a bit calm at times in the first half and tried to play more in the opposition’s half. Tonight we had three attacking players who are individually very good players, but I was really pleased with their build-up and the composure from Bacca for the goal.”

And what about their concentration levels? For the first time under Rooney, the Blues didn’t wilt at the first sign of pressure. They embraced the pressure and played the game out in Cardiff’s half. It was measured, controlled, and, hopefully, the future.

Dembele embraced an unwanted switch

Rooney has put his arm around Siriki Dembele more than any other player in the last two days. There was a moment between the two at the end of yesterday’s training session, and another during the post-match celebrations in Cardiff.

Maybe Dembele needed convincing about his change of position at first. The ex-Bournemouth and Peterborough winger isn’t used to playing on the right and he isn’t fond of it.

It was all part of the plan, though. Dembele played the defence-splitting pass to Bacuna for the goal and caused damage whenever he got on the ball.

“I know he’s not the biggest fan of playing off the right,” Rooney acknowledged afterwards. “He prefers playing off the left or through the middle, but tonight it was part of the game plan, which I felt was the right one to win this game. You see the effect Dembs had on creating the first goal.”