Holiday for Taylor as McLeish feels the heat

Birmingham City manager Alex McLeish has confirmed that the centre half is being given time off following his career threatening challenge on Arsenal's Croatia striker.

With Birmingham out of the FA Cup, Taylor is not due to return to action until the home game against Manchester City in four weeks.

McLeish said: 'We are giving him some time off. We have done it with a couple of suspensions in the past — and it's just the same for Tiny. We are trying to draw a line under it.'

The whole affair has overshadowed growing problems at St Andrew's with McLeish now having won just one game since his debut triumph at White Hart Lane three months ago.

Birmingham co-owner David Gold has already voiced his opinion that the club should be doing better.

And director David Sullivan must be regretting his blast at Steve Bruce — Wigan's new boss has 18 points from his dozen games so far.

McLeish, whose side entertain Tottenham today, maintains there is little wrong. He said: 'Performance-wise, every home game has been of a good standard, apart from Fulham in the first half. The matches at St Andrew's have been fairly impressive. It would be nice to turn them into three points.

'We have drawn them but it has not left us out of touch. Spurs will come with a spring in their step, having just won the Carling Cup. We congratulate them for that but we won't be standing around admiring them.

'The players have to give us the performance they did last weekend. We have drawn a line under what happened with Eduardo.

'My players will be told to get on their toes and tackle the way I'd expect them to — fairly — and hopefully they can win more than they lose.' Spurs are still in the hunt for the UEFA Cup but manager Juande Ramos has emphasised the importance of competing on all fronts.

'We must improve on our position in the Premier League,' he said. 'What we don't want to do is focus just on the league or just on the UEFA Cup or look too far ahead. We can't expect to reach another final without hard work.'

Ramos arrived from Sevilla four months ago but has already turned the club around in terms of results and training methods. He added: 'I'm very happy here. The club is well structured, I'm happy in my job and we have lots of possibilities for the future.'