Birmingham City talking points after the 3-0 win over Queens Park Rangers

An emphatic victory over a team that started Saturday inside the play-offs spelled out to the rest of the Championship that Birmingham City are contenders.

Blues blitzed Queens Park Rangers 3-0 at St Andrew’s thanks to a brace from Liam Millar and a stoppage time strike from Demarai Gray.

Their reward is fourth position in the Championship table after 11 matches as one of five teams through 20 points.

Here are our talking points post-QPR…

A team that can do it all

Blues have pinched goals through pressing, they have played through teams, they have scored from set pieces, a drop-ball and now they have a goal from a counter-attack.

The speed at which Jay Stansfield and Tomoki Iwata latched onto indecision from Rayan Kolli matched the speed with which Millar sped away to score the opening goal.

Chris Davies now has players who can turn defence into attack in an instant and that is a vital skill at any level of football.

Blues scored the all-important second inside four minutes of the second half through a more familiar press to score motion and from thereon they managed the game absolutely superbly.

Successful teams know how to soak up pressure and they know when the time is right to keep possession to take the sting out of the game. Blues showed both of those qualities between goals two and three.

There will be bumps on the road, but we are watching a team that is very complete and confident right now.

The difference maker

Millar might have been the last signing Blues made in the summer transfer window, but he might prove to be the most important.

Jhon Solis is an obvious contender for that accolade but, as a loan to permanent transfer, the Colombian hasn’t moved the needle much from last season.

Millar is a relatively low-cost replacement for last year’s loan ace Ibrahim Osman and he is providing a masterclass in what end product looks like.

So often you expect a Championship winger to falter in the final action but Millar is cool, calm and collected when the big moments arrive. Nobody expected him to slip up when Tomoki Iwata sent him racing towards QPR’s goal midway through the first half – and he didn’t.

Remarkably, Millar has seven goal contributions (four goals and three assists) in seven matches for Blues – nine in 10 if you include his games for Hull City this season. He managed three goals and five assists in 38 games last season.

The unluckiest player in the squad

For the second game in a row, Gray scored as a substitute. There can’t be many Championship teams Gray – a Premier League winner in his Leicester days – wouldn’t start for.

Such is Millar’s form, Gray is having to make do with cameos off the bench but no one has a better goals-per-minutes ratio.

Gray has four goals from 285 minutes of football this season and that statistic is even better when you remove Carabao Cup numbers. The 30-year-old averages a goal every 61 minutes in the Championship.

“With Demarai, he’s been ill, don't forget, and I still didn’t think he was in a position to start but he’s getting there now,” commented Davies. “Another week’s training is going to help him.

“Demarai has always been a fantastic substitute throughout his career because he comes on with the right attitude and focus. It allows him to get big contributions.

“Demarai is a key player, no doubt about it. We want that and we're going to need that with big games coming up.”

A captain who leads by example

Tomoki Iwata was my Man of the Match, while Millar grabbed the headlines with another two goals, but Blues skipper Christoph Klarer was a colossus at the back.

He threw himself into challenges in his natural full-blooded style and was successful more often than not. Klarer won six aerial duels and six tackles – no player managed more in either of those two statistics.

In a season where Phil Neumann, Bright Osayi-Samuel and Alex Cochrane have rightly been lauded for their improvements, Klarer has elevated his own level and few lead by example better than the Austrian.

A week to raise expectation levels

If the Championship hadn’t woken up to Blues before they dismantled a fancied QPR side, it must have now.

Blues are fourth, with 20 points and 20 goals from 11 matches and have now kept three successive clean sheets. They are a top team at this level based on every metric.

The confidence Davies has displayed in the last two weeks stems from a belief that Blues are equipped to challenge this season.

They have a squad with such strength that a South Korea international and a left-back who played 33 games in the Bundesliga last season might not find it easy to regain their places on the bench.

Davies said on Friday that Blues intend to stay in their lofty league position and, based on this week’s evidence, they can.