CITY assistant boss Mark Bowen has called for patience as Roque Santa Cruz finds his feet again at Premier League level.

The Paraguayan had enough class to score his first City goal, and pick up the man of the match award, against Scunthorpe in the Carling Cup last week, but he was clearly struggling at Birmingham on Sunday.

Bowen believes that Sunday's performance was a delayed reaction to making his first start in a game for eight months.

"He did ever so well in the Carling Cup game and got man of the match," said Mark Hughes' right-hand man.

"But football is always the same. Just when you think you have come through it and are 100 per cent, the weekend reminded us that this was his first league start in maybe five or six months of football.

"Plus he took a blow to his ankle which blew up like a balloon. He wanted to play on, but we could see the knock was holding him back.

"He will come on, and the more football he plays and the more training he gets, the more you will see the player we know that he is."

Santa Cruz was not alone in disappointing at St Andrew's, with nobody except Shay Given covering themselves in glory in a 0-0 draw.

City's management and players have since held an inquest into the reasons why the standard dipped against Birmingham, and have now written it off as a bad day at the office.

"We talked about it afterwards, and you look at tactics and other things, but maybe it was just one of those occasions when you have too many players not playing to 100 per cent of their capabilities," said Bowen.

"It's an old cliché in football, but if you have two or three not quite up to it, maybe the rest can carry them, but when you have five or six not quite at it on the day it affects you.

"When you look at that, and the fact Shay kept us in the game, it was a point gained in the end.

"A lot has been made of the fact that we have had four draws in a row but we look at it that three of those draws were away from home, and two were against sides that have beaten Chelsea.

"So we are not doing too badly. We are where we wanted to be at this stage of the season, in that top four with a game in hand, and everyone is positive and looking forward to the months ahead."

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