Birmingham City 2 Wanderers 0: SIMON Charlton attempted to bring a mood of calm over the Reebok today when he urged his team-mates to keep their nerve and stay focused in their bid for Premiership respectability.

Alarm bells were ringing after an abject performance at Birmingham raised fears that the knock-on effect of the Carling Cup Final defeat could turn hopes of a top half finish into a frantic fight for safety points.

But the straight-talking Yorkshireman told his team-mates: "Don't look down!"

"The last thing we want is for the rest of the season to go out with a bit of a fizzle," he said. "We don't want to be looking over our shoulders because we haven't been doing that all season and we don't want to start now.

"We're not safe but we don't want to look at that position because we know we are better than that.

"It just means we've got to get it together, work hard, look at whatever is going wrong and put it right."

Charlton rejected claims that, for all their determination to put their bitter memories behind them, the psychological blow of the Millennium Stadium defeat had impacted on their performance at St Andrew's, where Steve Bruce banked one of the most comfortable victories of his 100-match reign.

"I can't speak for my subconscious," he said. "It (the final) is done and dusted now. It was a great experience but we've just got to get on with it.

"I hope it doesn't dent our confidence. It's the way we are playing that bothers us more than anything. But we have to show our strength of character.

"Anybody can do the business when you are playing well, but we'll see now who can carry that on when things are not going so well.

"These things happen. You can go through a rich vein of form and you can go through poor veins and we are in the latter at the moment."

Worse than at any stage of the season, in fact.

Very rarely does any Sam Allardyce team put up such a tame and ineffectual performance as this. It came as no surprise to see them hustled by a Birmingham side that, since entering the Premiership two summers ago, has built its reputation on honest, spirited and workmanlike performances. Bruce, understandably, takes great pride in the fact that they are hard to beat.

But Wanderers were not just outfought, they were outplayed and outmanoeuvred, right from the first whistle.

Witness Allardyce, racing down to the touchline from his seat in the stand and lambasting his players after just two minutes of sleepy, sloppy, almost suicidal football.

He was happier in the second-half after finally getting them to realise they were in a battle and needed to play accordingly. But there were far too many basic errors made, precious little to test the Birmingham back four, who never needed to get out of cruise control, and only one chance in the entire game - a close range shot by Charlton that was palmed away by Maik Taylor, who is expected to convert his loan from Fulham into a permanent arrangement any day now.

By that time the game was up. Wanderers' two main creative forces - Youri Djorkaeff and Jay-Jay Okocha - were back in the dressing room; the former having walked off the field with a hamstring injury, the latter having trudged off, head bowed, after being replaced by Ibrahim Ba.

Neither had made any impact on the game while Ivan Campo, who was the only one of the "Big Three" to emerge from Cardiff with any real credit, only fared slightly better.

That was because Robbie Savage dominated the midfield with the high-energy, wholeheartedly committed style that is so typical of the man every opponent loathes, but who most would love to have in their team, especially when the battle lines are being drawn.

You sense that Charlton would be a good deal more confident going into the final games if he had a character like Savage at his shoulder or, perhaps, a few more of the Kevin Davies ilk, honest hard workers who never stop grafting, even when there is no joy to be had.

Allardyce took no particular delight in saying "I told you so" but he did remind his players that he had predicted that the tempestuous Welshman was the player who made Birmingham tick and also warned of the threat posed by Mikael Forssell - a player he described in his pre-match briefings as "one of the best strikers in the Premiership".

No surprise then that the Finland striker, who is on loan from Chelsea, should claim his 14th goal of the season, even though it was an untidy affair which owed more to Wanderers not being on top of their game - Charlton beaten by Clinton Morrison and Forssell's awkward first touch wrong-footing N'Gotty and Campo before mis-hitting his shot - than the quality of its construction.

For all their confidence and dominance, Birmingham had to wait until the 69th minute to make the game safe and again it was a black mark against the Wanderers defence as Damian Johnson got to the line to deliver a cross for Bryan Hughes - one of the smallest players on the field - to head in at close range.

Successive league defeats have never been the cause for panic buttons to be pressed but, with just two clean sheets in their last 20 league and cup games and some formidable attacking teams on the horizon, Wanderers desperately need to get their defensive house in order if they are to avoid being sucked into the danger zone. If, as most observers - Allardyce and Okocha included - suspect, Wanderers are still suffering the effects of their Carling Cup hangover, then they desperately need a quick pick-me-up. They should have enough points in store not to have to worry unduly about another nailbiter, but the longer it goes, the more the pressure will mount, and the more nervous they will become, however brave a face they put on it.