Steve Bruce was fulsome in praise of his team following their 2-1 victory over Crystal Palace, which catapulted them to the top of the table.

"It was fantastic game of football for the Championship and I thought we were absolutely terrific," said the Blues boss.

"For me it was as good as we've played for a couple of years especially in the first half where we had a spell of 20-25 minutes where we created chance after chance.

"We didn't take them and you're always worried when that happens.

"But I think we laid our marker down today, because I think Crystal Palace are one of those teams that are going to be there or thereabouts at the end of the season.

"I can't remember us having as many chances as we did today.

"Even in the last ten minutes we've had three glorious ones, but thankfully we've stuck one away with 90 seconds to go."

Niclas Bendtner celebrates his goal against Crystal Palace.

Turning to the performance of the two goalscorers Nicklas Bendtner and Sebastian Larsson Bruce said: "I don't think there was any doubt that when the chance fell to Nicklas he was going to take it.

"He's only been here a couple of weeks and we didn't see him last week because he was away with Denmark making his international debut where he also scored.

"You can see he's a very good talent and we're delighted to have him here and we hope we can keep him here until the end of the season because he can definitely score goals.

"And Larsson has also done very well.

"He probably felt hard done by that I left him out of the starting X1 today."

Bruce's decision to take Bendtner of late in the game was greeted with derision by some sections of the St. Andrew's crowd.

But as Bruce explains, the young Dane was still feeling the affects of his international outing.

"When I made the Bendtner substitution I had 15 or 20,000 people berating me .

"But what they didn't realise is that he picked up a knock in midweek and he was toiling with it a little bit.

"He's 18-years-old and the crowd don't understand that.

"But in my job I've you've got to make decisions and take that flak."