Birmingham manager Chris Davies hailed an “exceptional” return of 53 points from the first half of the Sky Bet League One season after his City side won 3-0 at Wigan.
Wigan bossed the opening 15 minutes at the Brick Community Stadium, with winger Jonny Smith forcing two superb saves from Ryan Allsop at full stretch.
However, after Birmingham scored from their first attack on the 18-minute mark, there was only going to be one winner.
Alfie May struck from close range after Wigan failed to clear their lines, and he added number two on the half-hour off Ethan Laird’s cross.
Michael Olakigbe hit the post for Wigan within seconds, but Birmingham added number three on the hour when Willum Willumsson finished off a fine team move.
With Blackpool’s late equaliser at Wycombe, it means Birmingham take over top spot in the third tier at the halfway mark – not that Davies is paying any notice of that fact.
“It’s an exceptional return and I’m delighted with the number of points we’ve got,” said Davies.
“I still haven’t looked at the league table and I don’t intend to because we don’t need to, it’s just about us picking up the points game by game.”
For Wigan boss Shaun Maloney, it was very much a case of what might have been, after his side paid a high price for not scoring early when they were on top.
“I’m gutted to get beat as always,” he said. “It is a bit of a strange feeling, because I think in the first half, I actually loved how we played, I thought we were very good.
“But we go in 2-0 down, and maybe when I come to reflect on this, it’ll be in both boxes where we’ve lost the game.
“They have a brilliant striker in Alfie May, who has a brilliant instinct to score.
“I’d definitely say he was the difference between both sides – certainly in the first half.
“We can always look at how we defend the box better, but we can also look at how more clinical we can be at the other end when we’re in attacking areas.
“I had a decision to make, as I always do when we face teams at the top end of the table, of whether to give up possession and try to defend for most of the game, or go toe-to-toe.
“We decided to go toe-to-toe, and if we are a really big team in this league, we don’t go in 2-0 down.
“If we have any sort of ambitions, we have to make more of periods in games – especially big games – when we’re so dominant.”
Birmingham boss Davies also has key men Krystian Bielik and Jay Stansfield – who both missed the game – to welcome back into the fold for the second half of the campaign.
“Bielik has got a knock that he picked up in the last game,” he said. “He won’t be too long but he wasn’t available for this one.
“Jay was a similar one. It was just an issue that meant he wasn’t available for this one but he won’t be long.”
