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King - No pressure on Blues

Image: Marlon King: Birmingham City striker is relaxed ahead of the play-off tie with Blackpool

Marlon King does not believe Birmingham City are under pressure in the Championship play-offs and are the team no-one wants to play.

Striker looking forward to facing Blackpool in the play-offs

Marlon King does not believe Birmingham City are under pressure in the Championship play-offs and are the team no-one wants to play. Birmingham meet Blackpool at Bloomfield Road in the first leg of the semi-final on Friday evening, with both clubs chasing an immediate return to the Premier League. Chris Hughton's side have enjoyed the busiest campaign, having played in the Europa League group phase, and King feels the packed schedule impacted on the prospects of automatic promotion. A string of other issues have also swirled around St Andrew's and King is now looking forward to the chance to help Birmingham return to the top flight. "My feeling is, being brutally honest, if we didn't have Europe and the other cup games I think we would have finished automatic (in the top two)," said the striker. "But we've got a job to do and it's Blackpool. It's going to be a tough two games and then we'll take it from there."

Relaxed

He continued: "If we considered (missing out on automatic qualification) a disappointment then I don't think we'd be at this stage discussing play-offs. "If we dwelled on 'what could have been' then I don't think we would have been able to have got to this stage of finishing fourth - strongly. We haven't lost in our last nine games, five draws and four wins is very, very strong by anybody's record. "And I don't think anybody in the play-offs would want to play us. I don't think the pressure is on Birmingham City, I think it's on other teams. "Blackpool will want to get back to where they came from, West Ham have spent a lot of money and Cardiff have been in and around it. "We're just a relaxed bunch and we've got a very calm and cool manager and staff, and we've got very passionate fans and people around the club."

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