Newcastle boss Kevin Keegan

In reference to critical speculation regarding his future at Newcastle United and to the club as a whole, which has gone 12 games without a win in the Premier League, Kevin Keegan said recently: "It's easy to bayonet the wounded." Keegan will hope that Birmingham City do not find it so tonight at St Andrew's.

On a run of four straight defeats and with just two points taken from Keegan's seven league games in charge, Newcastle desperately need to stem the draining belief and the drop down the division. It is nine days since the last of those losses, 3-0 at Anfield, and Keegan knows his players fall into the category of walking wounded.

Keegan said he has spent the time since that game "looking at things and saying: 'This is the situation we're in, this is what we need to do'. I've painted a picture for them because players do get a little bit apprehensive about the situation they're in when they haven't won for a while."

That picture includes a mention of Leeds United, which conveys a message of just how heavy Newcastle's fall could be. "If we start thinking we've got a divine right to be in this division, then we are in trouble," Keegan said. "Look at Leeds.

"It's our job to say: 'Yeah, some of the results haven't been good, but some of the performances have been better than the results would suggest'. I think Liverpool was below standard for us, but in most of the games since I've been here, I've thought that for 40 or 50 minutes of the game we've done well."

Newcastle held Liverpool at bay for 43 minutes and then conceded a "freak" goal according to Keegan, but by the 51st minute they were three down. Capitulation is, "a slight problem – or more than a slight problem. If you look at the facts, both before I came and since, that's not changed. It tells you about a lack of confidence."

Mark Viduka may start for the first time under Keegan but with two goals since September – both against Derby – Newcastle fans are not relying on the Australian. For Birmingham it is equally significant. Alex McLeish's side have won one of their last 10, but four others have been drawn and a home win would lift them above Sunderland, Newcastle and Reading.