Birmingham manager Chris Davies hailed one of his team’s “best performances” after a 4-0 win over Cambridge.
It extended their lead at the top of League One to seven points with a game in hand on second-placed Wycombe and stretched their unbeaten league run to 14 games.
City’s biggest league home win since they beat Reading 6-1 in December 2014 was the perfect response to Saturday’s thrilling 3-2 FA Cup defeat to Newcastle.
“I still think there’s growth in the team and levels to go through and this was one of our best performances,” said Davies.
“I felt we were due one of these results with the dominance and chances we’ve had in games.
“The big question about this game was how we were going to come out after a lot of emotion and energy that went into the Newcastle game.
“I thought the players answered it with their mentality, attitude, energy and determination and it was all there from the first whistle.
“Complacency is always going to be a question that’s levelled at us and I thought we answered that and showed an appetite for it.
“The record is pretty special and I thought there should have been some games where we should have been having that sort of margin.”
Jay Stansfield gave Birmingham the lead from the spot in the 23rd minute with his 19th goal of the season in all competitions.
It was 2-0 when Liam Bennett sliced the ball past his own goalkeeper Nathan Bishop on 39 minutes from Keshi Anderson’s cross and Kieran Dowell made it 3-0 a minute later, sidefooting home after Anderson dummied Stansfield’s square pass.
Stansfield earned a second penalty in the 57th minute when he was pushed over by Ben Stevenson, but Bishop blocked his effort.
Substitute Luke Harris lashed home the fourth goal from 20 yards after former City defender Michael Morrison glanced away Scott Wright’s cross.
Cambridge head coach and ex-City boss Garry Monk insisted the first penalty should not have been given but admitted his side were second best.
“The first penalty clearly shouldn’t have been given – I’ve seen it back to confirm it,” said Monk.
“That didn’t lose us the game but 20-odd minutes in, it changes the possibility of what the game could look like.
“We’re not happy with our performance and we didn’t do ourselves justice. We knew the size of the challenge – Birmingham are the outliers of the division with the quality they have and Chris has done a fantastic job.
“We needed to be at the levels we’re capable of and we didn’t show that in the first half.”
