Philippe Clement had a nightmare start to his tenure as Norwich City boss as his side were thrashed at Birmingham City

Clement - who was appointed Canaries head coach earlier this week after Liam Manning's dismissal - saw his side go behind in the third minute as Marvin Ducksch tapped in from close range.

Jay Stansfield headed Blues into a 2-0 lead as Norwich struggled to make any sort of impact in the game before an excellent move that ended with Mathias Kvistgaarden pulling a goal back for the Canaries.

But Ducksch restored the two-goal lead from six yards just before half-time while Stansfield made it 4-1 10 minutes after the restart.

The loss leaves Norwich second-from-bottom of the Championship - five points from safety - and they have lost eight of their last 10 games, drawing the other two.

Blues' third win in four games lifts them up to ninth in the table, a point off the play-off places.

Celebrating their 150th anniversary, Birmingham were in no mood to give Clement and his side any presents as they started superbly.

Demarai Gray forced Vladan Kovacevic into a good low save after a minute before being integral to the opener soon after.

The forward superbly controlled Alex Cochrane's long ball before his low pass across the six-yard box was tucked away by the unmarked Ducksch at the far post for his first goal since his summer move to St Andrew's from Werder Bremen.

Ducksch fired over from eight yard soon after as the Canaries - who came into the game with one win in 14 matches - struggled to cope.

It got worse for former Rangers boss Clement midway through the half when Stansfield got in front of his marker to head in Patrick Roberts' cross from the right after an excellent pass by Tomoki Iwata.

It could have been 3-0 had referee Anthony Backhouse awarded a penalty after Ducksch appeared to be pulled down by Harry Darling in the box three minutes after the second goal.

But Norwich came back into it with a superb move that sprung Jack Stacey free on the right, his cross was palmed away by James Beadle into the path of Kvistgaarden who finished from just inside the box.

Oscar Schwartau saw a close-range effort blocked by a Blues defender soon after as life appeared to return to the Canaries, only for it to be snuffed away when Ducksch was on the spot to tap in after Iwata's header was palmed out by Kovacevic.

Stansfield made it 4-1 as he doubled his tally with an excellent finish off the underside of the bar after being put through on goal by Gray, who did well to dispossess Kenny McLean before a perfectly-weighted through ball to his striker.

Iwata hit the post with a long-range effort with 25 minutes to go after Jovon Makama and Emiliano Marcondes had chances saved for Norwich.

Marcondes and Duffy forced two good saves from Beadle from successive corners five minutes later as Norwich's players tried to salvage some pride from the game.

But as the game drew to a close, Norwich created little apart from more worry for their fans - Clement knows he has his work cut out to try and turn the Canaries' fortunes around.

Birmingham City manager Chris Davies told BBC WM:

"It was an important game today.

"After the international break this is a disjointed few weeks because players are away and you have to get back together a couple of days before the game and see what kind of intensity you can bring to the next match.

"I thought that was the key to it, I thought we had a real intensity about us, we started really aggressively, we created a chance in the first minute which just sets the tone for the match.

"We were deservedly up in the game at half-time with a cushion and I liked the way we played the second half, so for us it was a really important win."

Norwich City head coach Philippe Clement told BBC Radio Norfolk:

"It was by far not good enough in the first half - lacking in intensity, lacking confidence on the ball and not doing the right things in our structure defensively.

"We were not doing the things that we trained, maybe out of nervousness or whatever, so there's things to talk about.

"When we could show things at half time it was much better, a much better structure creating chances and better on the ball and even getting more chances than Birmingham in the second half.

"But they scored the one goal where we made an individual mistake, so we need to look at the things that went wrong in the first half and build on the things that they did in the second half."

On how hard he feels his job is:

"You can look at all the games on video, and I saw all the games before I came, and you see things.

"But now you get to know people also, and that's also very important in football.

"Also their physical state at the moment that you cannot see on the video.

"We know we have a lot of things to work on, but we need to do it step by step.

"You cannot do everything in four or five days or four or five weeks."