Fulham need to find a way to deal with a side content to pump long balls in towards the Whites defence.

Birmingham produced that style of football in the Whites' 1-0 defeat at St Andrew's and the visiting defenders found it difficult at times to deal with the aerial bombardment.

And Tim Ream admitted it was difficult to counteract with Fulham needing to get to work on resolving the issue on the training ground.

He said: “They were hitting a lot of long balls and very aggressive on the press. We need to figure out a way to overcome those two aspects of their game and we didn't at Birmingham.”

Red: Ryan Fredericks is sent off

The turning point in the contest came in the 68th minute as Ryan Fredericks was sent off for a reckless lunge on Craig Gardner.

The Blues, spurred on by the man advantage, grabbed the winner soon after as Lukas Jutkiewicz turned the ball home.

Ream added: “It's one of those things isn't it? The red card was a game changer but we weren't playing well before that. We were better in the second half but overall, it wasn't a good game for us.”

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