Goals from Radhi Jaidi and Nicklas Bendtner had put Blues 2-0 up, before Marek Saganowski's late strike meant a nervy last few minutes for the home side.
Anyway, enough of that - I found Steve Bruce's diary this morning. Let's have a read...
Friday 13th April
7.45am - Alarm goes off. Phone Damien to check if he's ok. Get up.
7.55am - Brush teeth. It's been going quite well brushing my teeth with my right hand lately, so let's give it a go with my left hand. End up spilling toothpaste everywhere, dribbling down chin and making a mess of it. Tomorrow, rather than going back to using my right hand, I'm going to use one of my feet. Only if I make a mess again will I go back to using my right hand.
8.00am - Phone Damien to see what he's having for breakfast.
8.30am - Go out to car. I've been having loads of success at getting into the car lately using my car keys, so yesterday I tried using my mobile phone. It didn't work. I had to phone Damien and tell him to take training. Apparently Eric got annoyed. I could go back to using my car keys again, but I'm sure there must be another way - I'll try my wallet.
11.15am - Using wallet to get into the car isn't working. Phone Damien and tell him to take training again. I might try using the car keys again tomorrow. Go back into house and put on Sky Sports News.
11.20am - Phone Mr Sullivan and tell him I want to sign Richard Barker - he's top scorer in League 2 (good name too). I don't know anything about him, but he's top scorer for someone, so must be good. Mr Sullivan tells me that he'll add him to the list with Drogba, Earnshaw and Billy Sharp. I thank him very much. Tell Mr Sullivan that we need more pace, and I'd heard Lewis Hamilton was a talented young Englishman with loads of pace. Mr Sullivan tells me he's a racing driver. I say it's ok, we need a left-back.
12.25pm - Text Damien. He hasn't sent me a text for 32 minutes now. What's wrong?
12.30pm - Decide to have lunch. I'd been using butter on my bread in my sandwiches until the beginning of this week, with some success - it was working well. Decided to change on Monday, and used some shower gel. It was awful. On Tuesday I was too stubborn to go back to butter, so persisted with shower gel. It was dreadful again. Wednesday, rather than go back to butter I opted for Nutella. I like Nutella, and I like ham, but they really didn't go together at all - it was a complete waste of time. It was horrible. So, Thursday I used Nutella with the ham again - awful again. That's twice I've put them together and it hasn't worked. I really should know better. I've got to go back to butter now - it's getting desperate. Used butter - sandwich was nice. I'll stick with butter for the next few days, then get bored and give shower gel another chance.
And so on...
Lo and behold, upon Steve Bruce returning to a team resembling that which stormed to the top of the league at the end of 2006, Blues won and played fairly well again. Stephen Clemence and Fabrice Muamba were back in the middle of midfield, Nicklas Bendtner was up front, Gary McSheffrey was on the left with a right sided midfielder on the right side of midfield in Damien Johnson. Bruce couldn't quite go the whole hog though, so persisted with Stephen Kelly at left-back and Bruno N'Gotty at right-back, leaving the "rested" Mat Sadler out again to have an even longer rest.
Blues' first half performance was pretty good. Johnson again showed that he's quite an accomplished right winger, whilst Bendtner was clearly up for it. McSheffrey was heavily involved, but pretty wasteful, as debutant Andy "Andrew" Cole grew into the game. It was in midfield where Blues really dominated though, with Muamba immense and Clemence a calming influence alongside him.
Johnson was forced off midway through the first half with what appeared to be a hamstring strain, so Rowan Vine came off the nicely balanced bench (goalkeeper, midfielder, three strikers - you couldn't possibly not pick any of them and include Julian Gray or someone to give a slightly different option...) to restore some imbalance to the Blues side on the right.
Shortly afterwards Blues took the lead. Cole's good work earned Blues a corner, which McSheffrey took, and as he so often does, Jaidi met it with his head. Unlike at Barnsley where the big Tunisian was off target with a number of efforts, his header flew into the back of the net and put Blues 1-0 up.
Blues continued to press, and whilst Cole wasn't constantly involved, when he was his class told - he always found a good ball for a team-mate. Another excellent ball from Cole set up McSheffrey who blazed over when he should either have scored or returned the ball to Cole. At the other end, Southampton offered little threat, except for Danny Guthrie - on loan from Liverpool - hitting the post.
Saturday 14th April
3.50pm - Leave Eric to talk to the boys so I can go and see Damien in the physio's room. He says he's fine. He's such a good lad - best £50,000 I've ever spent. I'm hoping Eric's giving the usual half-time team talk and telling them to start slowly and save energy for the warm down after the game, telling the strikers to play on the wings, the wingers to play in midfield, the midfielders to play in defence and Martin to see how many people he can dribble past.
Southampton showed a bit more in the second half after the introduction of Kenwyne Jones as the Blues midfield seemed to tire. Blues still looked a threat going forward though, and Bendtner and Martin Taylor both went close.
With ten minutes to go Bendtner made it 2-0. Substitute Mehdi Nafti broke well and found Cole whose excellent through ball was timed perfectly for Bendtner to run onto and knock the ball one side of 'keeper Bihlavosklywskjytdjhgvski, run around the other side of him and knock the ball home.
With five minutes remaining Cole was taken off to a fine reception from the home fans. As I've said, he wasn't constantly in the game, but when he was Blues looked good. The next best thing you can say about him was that he was always in the six yard box as Blues got to the byline. He wasn't found today, but too often lately Blues have attacked but with the likes of Bendtner and Vine up front, they've had literally no one in the middle. That's Cole's game though, and if he keeps getting into those positions, the ball will find him one game, and you'd back him to score.
Immediately after DJ Campbell's introduction for Cole, Southampton pulled one back through Saganowski's free header. It was a blow for Blues, but Southampton failed to really capitalise and weren't much of a threat as Blues saw the game out comfortably, with Campbell's cameo assisting as he harassed the Saints defence at any opportunity.
So, Blues were back to winning ways, played some decent stuff (not over the full 90 minutes, but in spells, which is certainly an improvement) and with Derby slipping up again, things look a little better again - not brilliant, but alright. A win at Leicester on Tuesday in what is the famous game in hand, and Blues will be looking good again.
The one thing that does do your head in a bit though, is that it was just a return to a properly balanced team (well, nearly). Why did we stop doing that? Clemence and Muamba had been at the heart of Blues' earlier success, and there were times when one or the other was unavailable, but why was it messed about so often? Why were certain people dropped, others played out of position, etc, etc? If you pick a decent Blues side, that's balanced and includes people in proper positions, then they'll generally be ok. Why haven't we done it more though?
Anyway, on to Leicester, and hopefully a similar side again. I won't hold my breath though...
Saturday 14th April
5.30pm - Text Damien to check his hamstring's ok. Text Alex telling him that I love him and to thank him for getting the Derby goalkeeper sent off. Ask Eric about the Leicester game - he reckons we should pick an unchanged team, but I'm not so sure. I've just got this feeling about playing Cameron on the right wing with Rowan behind him at right-back... it might just work, you know...