Lee Bowyer: Birmingham City boss warns players of summer squad shake-up
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Bowyer has just marked his first anniversary as head coach at St Andrew's
Birmingham City boss Lee Bowyer has warned his players he is planning a summer shake-up of the squad.
Bowyer accused Blues of "shrinking" after going behind in Tuesday's 2-0 home loss to Middlesbrough.
They are 19th in the Championship, but with the comfort of a 13-point buffer to the relegation places.
"I don't want to be worrying about what's below you, I want to be climbing up the league," 45-year-old Bowyer told BBC Radio WM.
"If people aren't doing the right thing from now until the end of the season, or when they get opportunities, then that's it, they move on.
"There are too many here in that comfort zone and we are relying on our loan players too much - some of them have just come back from injury and we're still relying on them.
"That's not the way you build a team, relying on your loans. Not if you want to go in the right direction."
The result against Boro was Birmingham's fourth defeat in the past six games at St Andrew's, and was played on the eve of Bowyer's first anniversary as head coach.
He made a number of changes to the side which drew with Hull City at the weekend.
"[Tahith] Chong's been out for four months, so I can't play him Saturday-Tuesday - if I do, he's going to get injured and we don't want that to happen. [Leandro] Bacuna has started every game since he arrived and we lost Lyle [Taylor] in training," Bowyer explained.
"If we'd scored the first goal from the couple of chances we had, maybe the game was different. But they got the first goal, they grew into it and we shrunk and that's not good.
"When you go a goal down, that's when you have to grab the game and be brave and try and make something happen. I didn't see that from the players and that's really disappointing."
He added: "We lost every battle, whether challenging for headers or tackles. I saw players pulling out of 50-50 tackles, half-heartedly going in, and that's never going to sit well with me."
Birmingham's final game before the international break is at Swansea City on Saturday.
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