Birmingham City will have several friendly matches lined up before the start of the season in the first week of August.

They have been quite convincing in the friendly games up until now, but manager Gary Rowetthas claimed that the players will have to start delivering over the next few games in order to claim a spot in the first team for the new season. Birmingham have undergone a number of changes in recent seasons and the latest change is in the manager.Rowett was appointed as the Birmingham City boss in October 2014 and he failed to lead the club to a play-off place.

The 41-year-old is likely to be excused due to the fact that he is one of the youngest managers in the Championship. It will take time before his ideas start to work their magic. Last season, the club finished in 10th place, which was pretty decent considering the budget in the transfer window. In a rather strange situation, Birmingham have scheduled two friendly matches on the same day.Rowett will be sending out two squads for the games against Shrewsbury Town and Northampton Town. The manager says that he will have a close look at both matches and arrive at a conclusion for his first-team.

“We will mix it up again but we are always looking to give people partnerships to have a little look at.It will be a case of us having to get through 90 minutes as a team. If we get one or two tire towards the end then we have got the Under 21s to fill in the gaps. It’s important to us that they get 90 minutes in and after that it’s a case of ‘OK, we now really need to start looking at the team and playing a stronger starting team that’s a bit more consistent’,” said Rowett.