Birmingham City talking points after the rout of Preston include Patrick Roberts, August Priske and Alex Cochrane

They say see where you are after 10 games and Birmingham City are third in the Championship table having only tasted defeat once.

Preston North End were well and truly put to the sword by Chris Davies’ upwardly mobile side on Tuesday night.

Liam Millar, August Priske (2) and Demarai Gray scored Blues’ goals in a 4-0 win over the Lilywhites at St Andrew’s.

Here are our talking points…

Blues have goals in them

Blues aren’t the first team to score four against Preston this season and, based on this evidence, they might not be the last, but you can only beat what’s in front of you.

Once they breached a Preston defence that started the game resiliently the floodgates opened.

Quick-thinking from Alex Cochrane set up Priske’s first and Blues swarmed all over Preston from the restart to add a third to kill the game before half-time.

Davies was able to rotate in the second half with Max Bird and Demarai Gray introduced on the hour, Taylor Gardner-Hickman and Carlos Vicente brought on for 15 minutes and Marvin Ducksch given the final five.

Gray stepped off the bench to score and Bird, who has shown a knack for arriving into the box from midfield, should have scored one or two.

Davies has set his team a target of 70 league goals this season and they now have 17 goals after 10 matches and an expected goals (xG) of 19.88. On paper, they have created more chances than all bar four Championship teams.

Question answered

No one can blame Preston boss Graham Alexander for setting his team up as he did. The new manager has had little time to work with his players on the training ground and his priority was always going to be to sort out their defence.

Blues faced a back five for the first time this season and, as Davies predicted pre-match, they had to be patient to find the breakthrough.

It was by no means a classic for 30 minutes but you couldn’t help but admire the variation in Blues’ attacking play. They worked dangerous situations down both sides before a rapid interchange between Tomoki Iwata, Jay Stansfield and Patrick Roberts opened the door for the latter to tee up Millar.

We spent the first eight games worrying whether Blues had focused so much on becoming a physical, difficult-to-beat team that they had abandoned the playing principles that made them such a force under Davies to begin with. Based on this evidence – and, admittedly, it’s a small sample size – we needn’t have worried. They can still play.

Roberts unlocked the door

Key to Blues’ effectiveness in possession was the reintroduction of Roberts to the starting XI. Davies promised a ‘horses for courses’ approach this season and Roberts was always likely to be the weapon of choice for Preston.

The diminutive right-sider has the ability to spot the spaces and execute defence-splitting passes. He did his job by creating the goal that opened the scoring.

“They’re both doing really well,” Davies commented. “Carlos has been great this season, he has given us a lot of energy and quality, but I just felt with this game they would be more low and trying to stifle us. Patrick can open a door out of very little.

“He’s got three assists – that’s his third of the season – so I was pleased with him.

“Then on the other side you’ve got Liam scoring and Demarai scoring after coming on. This is what I want, I want competition, I want them to be teammates but be in competition for their starting spots.”

Priske is delivering

I have two concerns where Blues are concerned that are both out of Davies’ control. The first is whether they have the squad depth/quality to cope with a serious spate of injuries and the second is whether they have the firepower to reach Davies’ target of 70 goals.

To do the latter Blues would need significant contributions from Stansfield and Priske who are clearly Davies’ first choices in the nine and 10 positions.

Priske is the striker and the man wearing the No.9 on his back, whereas Stansfield is buzzing around here, there and everywhere, so one would argue there is more pressure on the Dane to chalk up goals.

With three goals in his last two appearances and five in his first 11 matches of the season, Priske is delivering.

Small margins decide games

Or in this case, kill games. Preston weren’t dead and buried when referee Sam Allison called a drop-ball on the left wing but they momentarily switched off and Blues ruthlessly punished them.

Cochrane’s imagination told him to set and cross and Priske was alert in the middle when Jordan Storey had nodded off. The result was a second goal that removed the game’s jeopardy.

“I was trying to work out what was going on myself,” said Davies. “I did see the other ball come onto the pitch, then it was a throw-in, then it was our ball, then it was he’s just going to drop it.

“I thought we don’t have to contest this and we don’t have to give it them back. Alex spotted that perfectly and the players were really alive in the box.

“I think they switched off because a couple of players did try to make an effort to stop the cross without any real conviction and then one of their players just didn’t drop.

“They’re the things where you have to be concentrated in a game. That’s a bit of a grey area with a little bit of confusion and we exploited that.”

It’s the sort of goal ruthless winners score and Blues have given a good impression of the full package since returning from the international break.