We need to remain together and try and stay as positive as we can. No excuses moving forward, we need to make sure we’re ironing out mistakes.”
Ruddy dubbed Saturday’s meeting with Watford a ‘must win’ match. The Hornets sacked Valerien Ismael at the weekend after a run of one victory in 12 matches and have named Tom Cleverley their interim head coach. Cleverley was at St Andrew’s on Tuesday to cast his eye over Blues.
Part of Blues’ problem this season has been their inability to keep clean sheets. Ruddy has only kept seven shut-outs in comparison to 14 in the Championship last season. Instability on the touchline and in defence are undoubtedly contributing factors to Blues’ regression on that front.
Ruddy commented: “Different managers have different styles. John (Eustace) was labelled a transitional manager, rather pragmatic, but found a way to get a very good balance between us.
“We obviously then switched to a more possession-based style, which I don’t think suited us very well, and now we’re trying to find a middle ground where we can get back to being defensively solid but also still threaten going forward.
