Birmingham City boss Lee Bowyer has slammed the way his side defended as they lost 3-0 at home to Nottingham Forest yesterday.

Despite the scoreline, Blues actually started well but they fell behind early on to a Lewis Grabban strike and Ryan Yates doubled Forest's advantage in the 29th minute.

Whilst the Reds will feel they were good goals, they were soft from the hosts perspective, along with Djed Spence's third, which effectively ended the game.

And, speaking to Birmingham Live, Bowyer was extremely critical of his defensive players for their showing.

"We are showing them the mistakes, we are working on the mistakes and we still making the same ones again.

"I have been here long enough, I am guessing now this is the reason why this football club has been down at the bottom for the last three or four years – because you defend like that, you are going to be down the bottom. The last few games, it’s happened too many times and I have got to fix it."

The verdict

This was a pretty remarkable from Bowyer when you see the full quotes and he certainly wasn't pulling any punches in how he assessed the defenders and you have to say he is spot on.

The defending just wasn't good enough yesterday, as it wasn't good enough against QPR in the week and Peterborough weeks before that. So, it's a recurring theme and it's not acceptable.

Having said that, fans will rightly ask why Bowyer is sticking with the players after those performances, so it's on him as well. You would expect major changes to be made after the international break though.

Thoughts? Let us know in the comments below.