Nothing changes

Continuity and stability. You can't knock it when it comes to compiling an unbeaten run.

Blues named the same starting XI for the fifth time in a row for Blackburn Rovers visit.

Some feat. And definitely a great help in cementing the shape, understanding and bond between players.

Had it not been for Barry Ferguson's sending-off, giving Teemu Tainio a chance at Liverpool, and Joe Hart's ineligibility for Manchester City, Blues would have been unaltered for the whole of this eight-game unblemished stretch.

Anyone remember the last time Blues fielded the same XI for such a period of time? I had to delve a fair way back into my record books (although I had a hunch it wouldn't have been in Barry Fry's days, which proved correct).

You have to have luck with players staying injury-free, of course, and suspensions. Then managers can tinker with the odd selection or formation, depending on the opposition or form. So it's quite unusual, especially for Blues, to keep a familiar line-up.

In the last four matches of the 2006-07 Championship season Steve Bruce named the same XI as Blues came to within an inch of winning the title.

But it was back in 1998-99, two-and-a-half seasons into Trevor Francis's reign, when the Blues team remained unchanged for six successive matches.

I bumped into two of the members of that side at St Andrew's last night, Jon McCarthy and Martin O'Connor, and asked if they knew who their team mates were. They were stumped on one or two, and no wonder.

The unbroken sequence came the week after the 7-1 drubbing of Oxford United at the Manor Ground in December, 1998.

Martin Grainger got injured and Simon Marsh - remember him? - stepped into the breach at left-back for a 0-0 draw against Sunderland at home.

The team that day, and for the following five games, was:

Kevin Poole;

Gary Rowett, Michael Johnson, Gary Ablett, Simon Marsh;

Jon McCarthy, Martin O'Connor, Steve Robinson, Peter Ndlovu;

Paul Furlong, Dele Adebola.

In that spell, Blues results were Sunderland (h) 0-0; Sheffield United (h) 1-0; Bury (a) 4-2; Leicester City (a, FA Cup 3) 2-4; Port Vale (h) 1-0; Barnsley (a) 0-0.

Grainger, Nicky Forster and Bryan Hughes remained frustrated on-lookers on the substitutes bench.

Furlong scored five goals and in the next match the only changes to the team were Jerry Gill for Rowett and Chris Holland for O'Connor.

At the end of that season Blues reached the (as was) Division One play-offs for the first time and lost 7-6 in a penalty shoot-out to Watford.