Three days after coming from 3-1 down on aggregate to beat West Ham and reach the Carling Cup final, Blues were two down inside 26 minutes through goals from Marlon King and Richard Wood before David Bentley, Stuart Parnaby and Kevin Phillips secured a fourth-round 3-2 victory. McLeish said: "I wouldn't want to live through that too often with the stress levels but I thought the team played well today. There was a lot of really good stuff." Things began well for Birmingham as they created two golden chances in the opening nine minutes, with Zigic heading just wide before Phillips saw his header brilliantly tipped onto the bar by Keiren Westwood. But they were made to pay for those misses two minutes later when King was given far too much space to turn and fire into the far corner, while the Sky Blues deservedly grabbed a second 26 minutes in - former Blue Gary McSheffrey picking out Wood from a corner. Birmingham were given hope 10 minutes before half-time when Tottenham loanee Bentley lashed a shot beyond Westwood from 25 yards and after the break the hosts were always in the ascendancy. They had to wait until the 67th minute for their equaliser, though, and it could hardly have come from a more unlikely source. Parnaby had not scored since a game between Middlesbrough and Bolton almost five years ago, but the full-back found himself in the right place to hook in Alexander Hleb's pull-back. And six minutes later Blues went in front for the first time in the match thanks to another player who has had limited opportunities this season. Evergreen Phillips was positioned perfectly at the back post to volley in Jean Beausejour's corner and provide a perfect finish to a landmark week for Birmingham. McLeish made nine changes from the win over West Ham, and he praised the never-say-die attitude of his players. "We shouldn't have made it hard for ourselves because we started great," he said. "Coventry are obviously very dangerous up front. The big lad (Clive) Platt was a handful and of course we all know about Marlon King. But I knew there was goals in it for us. "Bentley's was a cracker. We needed that. It was a turning point. If we'd gone in 2-0 down it would have been much tougher. The second half was again a measure of this squad's resilience and their desire not to give up until the final whistle." Coventry boss Aidy Boothroyd felt his team had been punished for playing with their hearts instead of their heads. He said: "I thought it was a terrific occasion and I'm afraid we got caught up in it in the second half and wanted to try to score three and four goals rather than being sensible. "If somebody's bigger than you and better than you, you don't go toe to toe with them - and that's what we did. "For some strange reason, despite what was said at half-time, we went all out to try to beat Birmingham City, a Premier League team, convincingly when really what we should have done was weathered the storm, kept calm and hit them on a sensible counter-attack."
