Cardiff City striker Yousef Salech was only meant to make a cameo appearance against Birmingham City, before his game-winning turn.

Salech had not featured for the Bluebirds since injuring his shoulder in the win over Charlton Athletic five weeks ago.

He had been named on the bench to face Chris Davies' side, before a groin injury suffered by Krsytian Bielik in the warm-up prompted a late change.

Salech went on to play 90 minutes, scoring the game's only goal as well as missing a penalty.

But Brian Barry-Murphy said he was always confident in the forward, admitting he based the decision on caution against Birmingham's set-piece strength.

"It wasn't a situation that we envisaged happening," said the Cardiff City head coach.

"We threw him in but he is very strong-minded. Once I asked him the question if he was good to go, there was no hesitation.

"He was tired afterwards - he looked punch-drunk - but I think the victory will make him sleep easier tonight."

Salech responded with his third Championship goal of the campaign, with Barry-Murphy having to shuffle his selection following defender Bielik's injury,

"Krystian felt his groin at the end of the warm-up and we weren't sure he could play," he explained.

"We're already without so many centre-backs, we couldn't take another chance with Krystian.

"We didn't expect Yousef to be playing any longer than 45 minutes under any circumstances, really.

"But Birmingham are a very dangerous team with a really big set-play presence and it was important to have Yousef on the pitch for that.

"We could have played Chris Willock, but I felt as if it was important that we had a chance to defend the set-plays that we would face."