Birmingham City manager Steve Cotterill has admitted that he is happy with the response of his players since their 6-1 thrashing at the hands of Hull City.

The Blues suffered a humiliating defeat in their final outing prior to the international break, as Cotterill - brought in to replace Harry Redknapp - watched on from the stands.

Birmingham are third-bottom of the Championship table after winning just two of their opening 11 games, but their new manager expects them to hit back when playing host to league leaders Cardiff City on Friday night.

"I am happy with their response for sure. You saw them on the training ground this morning and I wouldn't say they were like that at the beginning part of last week," the Birmingham Mail quotes him as saying. "But probably the less said about that the better. They have been excellent, they really have. They are in good spirits, we got a lot of work done last week and a fair bit done this week as well.

"We have looked at all aspects of trying to get a successful football team together. Probably every aspect that you could mention, we have tried to cram in this last two weeks. We have been positive from the word go on the Monday morning when I started after Hull City. There has been no negative talk. It has all been about going forward.

"That's what I have tried to do, focus on all the positives and the good things that we have got going for us rather than dragging up the negatives that will be bandied about and being 22nd in the table. In training I have seen a lot of progress, in all aspects. But you never quite know how much progress they have made until they are back in the arena because that's another completely different environment.

"I haven't seen a lack of confidence in training this week. We will never know until we get back out there and there is 20,000-odd again. You just have to try and make them the best prepared. There won't be anything that Cardiff will do this week that we won't know about. There will be no surprises."

Birmingham follow up Friday's clash against Cardiff with a trip to Millwall on October 21, before playing host to Aston Villa eight days later.