Carvalhal unhappy at Christmas schedule ahead of Boro trip

Wednesday put in an excellent attacking display to roll aside their opponents at Hillsborough, with Fernando Forestieri scoring twice.

Forestieri (37) popped up in the middle of a goalmouth scramble to punish poor Birmingham defending and tap home off the post for the opening goal.

Kieran Lee (39) made it two in two minutes as City were made to rue yet another defensive error. This time Jonathan Spector's clearance rebounded off his own team-mate and fell to the grateful Lee who slotted past Tomasz Kuszczak.

The win was rounded off by a solo effort from Forestieri following a quick pass to set him free on the left wing. After carrying the ball for half the length of the pitch, the Italian cut inside and curled a shot beyond the helpless Kuszczak.

Carvalhal said: "We waited for our moment to start opening spaces and when we did we scored one then a second.

"At half-time we corrected a few things and more importantly, I said that we need to show Birmingham that we want the third goal.

"Fernando got the third goal and after that everything was in our players' control.

"We play Middlesbrough on Monday. Nobody recovers in two days. This is a fact I accept but we go to play a team that have not played today and they have had a week to prepare.

"This is not good for the competition in my opinion. It is not fair and it is not correct. If that team can't play for the weather then put our game one day after, and the same with Blackburn and who they play.

"Everybody must play in the same conditions and the minimum is three days."

Birmingham manager Gary Rowett said: "They've got some really good individual players who can hurt you on any given day, but until the first goal I thought there wasn't a great deal in the game.

"They got the opening goal and it was a very poor goal from our point of view. But I've seen the replay and you can quite clearly see there's a foul from [Atdhe] Nuhiu and then the ball comes of Forestieri's hand.

"As we see in this division, if one or two things go against you it can be a mountain to climb.

"Straight away again we concede when there was no danger. Spector reads it quite well and makes the clearance but it goes straight into [David] Davis and falls to Lee.

"We huffed and puffed but we just didn't show enough quality in the game."