Birmingham City take on Shrewsbury Town in their second Bristol Street Motors Trophy group stage game tonight
Chris Davies will have to patch his Birmingham City team up for their second Bristol Street Motors Trophy group match this evening.
Blues opened up with a draw against Walsall in Southern Section Group A and could do with a win at Shrewsbury to boost their hopes of progressing. Shrewsbury were defeated in their first BSM match by Fulham’s under-21s who Blues will host at the end of October.
Davies will be without six players due to international call-ups and a further five, including captain Krystian Bielik, are expected to be sidelined through injury. The game at The Croud Meadow, which will be watched by 3,159 travelling Blues fans, will see a number of fringe players given minutes.
Ryan Allsop will likely continue in goal with Bailey Peacock-Farrell away on international duty. Academy graduate Bradley Mayo will act as Allsop’s understudy in Shropshire.
Alex Cochrane might have to start at left-back with Lee Buchanan out. Brandon Khela, who has started a couple of games at left-back this term, is likely to be needed at right-back. If Davies wants to give Christoph Klarer a rest, Dion Sanderson could partner Ben Davies at the back.
A midfield axis of Taylor Gardner-Hickman plus one makes sense after Tomoki Iwata and Marc Leonard struggled to compliment each other when they started against Walsall. Iwata is in need of a breather and Leonard is in need of game-time having sat on Blues’ bench for League One matches in the past six weeks. Gardner-Hickman plus Leonard makes sense.
Super-sub Scott Wright should take his place on the right, with Ayumu Yokoyama in line to get a chance on the opposite flank. Yokoyama hasn’t played at all since starting the Walsall game on September 3.
Without natural number tens Willum Willumsson and Luke Harris, Davies could deploy Keshi Anderson in a central position and restore Alfie May to his preferred centre-forward role. However, there is a chance Davies keeps May in that withdrawn role in the hope that he starts to shine there. If May does play deeper, Lukas Jutkiewicz is the natural alternative up front.