Birmingham City manager Lee Bowyer says the form of others has made it hard for Dion Sanderson to force his way into the Blues' side at the start of this season.

Following an impressive spell on-loan with Sunderland last season, Sanderson's arrival at St Andrew's on a season-long loan from Wolves had prompted plenty of excitement from Birmingham fans.

However, Sanderson has so far made just one appearance for Birmingham this season, in their League Cup defeat to Fulham.

Now it seems as though Sanderson's struggles for game time this season, are more than to the performances of others, than himself.

Speaking ahead of his side's 4-1 defeat to Fulham on Wednesday about Sanderson's time with the Blues and his lack of game time for the club so far, Bowyer was quoted by Birmingham World as saying: “I think he’s enjoying it. I like to think he’s enjoying it. All the players that come to us should enjoy our training every day and Dion is no different.

“It’s been difficult because he came and he was injured and our strength at the moment is clean sheets. We’ve conceded three goals in six games, someone said to me it’s the best record in the division, I could be wrong.
“For us to do that, it’s difficult for Dion to then move someone aside but I’ll come back to what I said earlier, there’s 40 games to go - he’ll play games there’s no doubt about that.” Following that defeat to Fulham, Birmingham are tenth in the table with 11 points from seven league games, ahead of their trip to London Road to face Peterborough on Saturday afternoon. The Verdict This does feel like a rather fair assessment for Bowyer to give with regards to Sanderson. Prior to Wednesday's defeat to Fulham, it had certainly been a strong start to the season for Fulham defensively, so it could have been hard for Bowyer to justify changing his defence just to give Sanderson some game time. However, this is a long season where injuries and suspensions will inevitably take their toll at some point, so it would be a surprise if Sanderson goes the entire campaign without an opportunity to impress. Indeed, given the form that he has already shown in the past, it would also feel like something of a surprise, were he not to take that chance.