Kevin Phillips spent the weekend basking in the latest shower of praise to come his way following his heroic cameo in Swansea.Rightfully so, after all it was the third occasion this season that Phillips has risen from the substitutes’ bench to earn all three points for a below-par Birmingham City.He did it against Sheffield United, he did it at Southampton and on Friday he did it in South Wales as two well-taken goals left stylish Swansea City cursing their luck.However if it hadn’t been for the contribution of another second-half substitute at the Liberty Stadium then Phillips’ super powers would have failed him.For 67 minutes of Friday’s match, Birmingham were lacking creativity in the centre of their midfield and they were struggling to drive forward with any real menace.That was until Kemy Agustien was introduced, two minutes after the arrival of Phillips, as the Dutch midfielder produced a performance that ultimately made him the unsung hero of the 3-2 victory.Phillips would have been powerless had it not been for the fresh legs of Agustien as the man on a season-long loan from AZ Alkmaar finally put Swansea’s defence to the test.Agustien was rested against Charlton after being involved in 11 straight matches but the 22-year-old will surely be back in Birmingham’s starting line-up for Tuesday night’s match at home to Ipswich Town.“Kemy’s legs were very important for us,” admitted Birmingham manager Alex McLeish. “Mehdi (Nafti) was tiring and Kemy got forward, made some runs that got Swansea on the back foot at last. Kemy made a big impact.“He’s 22-years of age, I’ve maybe been asking too much of a young loan player to come and make a big difference to the midfield. I think he’ll get better and better.“We were 2-1 down, my words at half time were ‘there’s one goal in it, we’re not out of it, there’s goals in this game’. I was hoping that there would be goals for us, we looked much better in the second half, we were a bit tighter, past it better, didn’t surrender possession as much and we gradually came back into the game. “The substitutions worked for us, Agustien’s impetus and Kevin of course.” McLeish’s quartet of midweek internationals all started the match on Friday but two, James McFadden and Quincy Owusu-Abeyie, were taken off in the second half. Prior to Friday night’s trip, McLeish didn’t appear to be too perturbed about the ill-effects that Wednesday night’s travels were going to have on his players for a match just 48 hours later.However the realism must have dawned on McLeish barely 20 minutes into Friday’s match as Swansea’s slick and pacy game had his Birmingham side firmly on the ropes. Despite seeing his team dramatically rescue three points, interestingly McLeish still chastised the poorly arranged and unfair fixture list. “James was knackered,” lamented McLeish. “I don’t think the international games did us any favours at all despite the managers being very co-operative, James played two-thirds of the game and that was maybe a bit too much for me considering that he was the only player playing on the Friday night in the Scotland set-up. “Seb (Larsson) said he felt really tired in the first half, there was the travelling as well, Quincy travelled to Africa so we were a bit handicapped in that respect. “I’m glad the boys have responded and they haven’t made too big a fuss with the league fixing up this game in an international week.”
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