Martin Taylor feels Birmingham have the defensive strength - even without Gary Cahill - to avoid relegation from the Premier League.McLeish was aware of the need to strengthen at the heart of the back four after on-loan Johan Djourou returned to Arsenal and Radhi Jaidi was on African Nations Cup duty.

The former Scotland boss signed Hibernian full-back David Murphy but failed to capture his number one target, Cahill, who instead moved from Aston Villa to Bolton in a £5million deal.

It has meant Taylor, who was told he was surplus to requirements at the start of last month, coming back into the frame and he believes Blues have what it takes defensively to cling onto their top flight status.

Taylor, who had a loan spell at Norwich before his first-team recall, said: "You read the papers and you hear things and you don't know what is true and what isn't true about who was supposed to be coming in.

"I've only played a small part but, from what I've seen this season, we've been very strong defensively.

"We haven't been cut open by teams, or had a good beating off anyone, or anything like that. In that part of the team we've got enough bodies to make sure we can cope defensively."

Birmingham are only above the bottom three on goal difference but Taylor believes the mixture of youth and experience will stand them in good stead.

He said: "We've got youth and experience here, there's enough energy, everyone is sticking together and no-one is panicking.

"We know as a squad we are good enough to win the games we need to win to stay in the Premier League."

More Football News from TEAMtalk