Birmingham City manager Gary Rowett has praised former Brentford striker Clayton Donaldson as 'almost undroppable'.

Donaldson has impressed in his first full Championship season, scoring 15 goals in all competitions with 12 of those coming since Rowett left Burton Albion to join the Midlands outfit.

The 41-year-old took over the Blues hotseat in November following Lee Clark's sacking and has used Donaldson far more than his fellow City strikers Lee Novak, Wes Thomas and Nikola Zigic.

Novak, Thomas and Zigic have only started three league games between them this season since Rowett took over.

The 31-year-old striker played all 90 minutes in Birmingham's 1-0 defeat to promotion pushers Watford on Saturday.

Donaldson came close to scoring but his shot was fired straight at Heurelho Gomes who punched the ball to safety.

However Rowett was keen to express his delight at the strikers performances, "He’s been brilliant,” He told the Birmingham Mail. “The first thing I always look at with any player is what do they give to the team?

“Are they a team player and if they’re a team player, then I look at the rest of the attributes.

“The first thing is he’s a fantastic team player and he works his socks off and he is always unselfish the way he goes about things.

“Then the next thing you look at is what can’t he do? He’s got a little bit of everything.

“He’s decent in the air, he’s got very good pace, he holds the ball up well for others, he’s got a little bit of physicality and he scores goals.

“If you look at the goals he’s scored and if you also look at the chances he’s created he’ll probably be unlike most strikers in this division where I’d imagine a lot of them on 20 goals would probably be penalty takers as well in their respective teams.

"He doesn't do that and he’s had a lot of other chances.

“I think he’s been as good as any striker in this division and I think we’re very lucky to have him and I think he’s the reason why we've got some very good players like Lee Novak, Wes Thomas and Nikola Zigic who have not played very much.

“I feel sorry for them but the reason is Clayton at the moment has been almost undroppable with his recent performances.”

Birmingham City are currently 14th in the Sky Bet Championship table with 53 points from their 43 matches this season.