Alex McLeish saw Blues gain revenge over Portsmouth last night but admitted he would have preferred the FA Cup glory.
Birmingham climbed back to eighth place in the Premier League with the 2-1 which went some way to atoning for Saturday's FA Cup quarter-final loss at Fratton Park - but not completely, according to McLeish.
"Well, it probably wouldn't have made a difference to us in the league if we had won the one at the weekend, so I suppose we would have taken the FA Cup glory," he said.
McLeish made four changes, with Michel turning in an impressive starting debut, but it was Cristian Benitez who made the difference, setting up both Cameron Jerome's goals before Kanu pulled back a late consolation for Pompey.
"We thought fresh legs would help us and we played some excellent football in the first-half," said the Blues boss.
"We played well on Saturday, the first 45, but last night we carved some great chances and probably could have been out of sight at half-time.
"To go in 2-0 up was well deserved.
"We might have had more in the second-half, but Portsmouth came back at us, as they did at the weekend."