Birmingham's Forssell hails McLeish as the new Mourinho

Mikael Forssell was not fishing for a starting spot against Bolton Wanderers next Saturday — his goal may be sufficient to ensure that — but he threw the Portuguese master's name in to explain the breath of fresh air that has swept through the blue half of Birmingham since the Scot's arrival.

But for a last-minute goal at Newcastle, McLeish would be nursing a healthy return from two tricky away fixtures and this draw against Reading, who certainly had less claim to a point than the hosts.

Shortly after his arrival, he stunned Birmingham's players with his attention to detail before their game with Tottenham, showing them a DVD of Spurs' strengths and weaknesses.

Forssell said: "McLeish reminds me of Jose Mourinho. I played under Mourinho at Chelsea. He worked a lot on tactics. He believed in working as a team when we defend. And we looked at videos of how other teams play.

"That is what we are doing now under the new manager. We try to cover everything and tick all the boxes so when the Saturday comes, it is up to us as players. He makes sure we have done everything we can. At home we are playing two up-front now and that causes defences problems.

"The approach we used to take was going into games to keep it 0-0 and then if we made a mistake we had to chase the game. Now we seem to be seizing the initiative more and making the other teams work."

Forssell's fourth-minute header gave Birmingham a lead but then Mat Sadler's hopeless backpass let in Stephen Hunt in the 51st minute. The Irishman was too quick for Maik Taylor, who brought him down, and Hunt's penalty earned Reading their first away point since the opening day at Old Trafford.

Hunt said: "I thought we could kick on here after my goal but Birmingham pushed us back and Marcus Hahnemann made some good saves."