Birmingham City 1 Doncaster Rovers 0

Sep 14 2008

ALEX McLeish praised Birmingham’s power of 10 after Cameron Jerome’s winner defeated determined Donny and made amends for Mehdi Nafti’s stupid sending off.

Blues were reduced to 10 men following Nafti’s nasty two-footed challenge on 24 minutes, but their number 10, Jerome, saved the day with a clinical 46th minute volley.

McLeish was delighted with the resilience of his unbeaten Championship title favourites after their 13th point from a possible 15 kept them joint top on with free-scoring Wolves.

“It wasn’t pretty but it was effective in the end,” he said. “Hats off to the 10 men who went out there and dug deep.

“ We scored a fantastic goal by a man who’s looking confident at the moment, so I’m grateful for the spirit of the players and I’ve got the belief in them.

“The only niggle from me is that we’ve got to be better than that, but there’s been great spirit and we have dug a couple of results out.

“I think that there’s the quality in the dressing room to get us a goal if we need one and it was a useful one today just after half-time.

“We had to defend very deep in the second-half but we defended well and it was a good solid back four display.”

Nafti’s moment of madness was all the more galling given that this was the Tunisian’s return to first-team action at the expense of Kemi Agustien after overcoming a hamstring problem.

After a comedy of errors, during which Martin Taylor and Lee Carsley both squandered possession in their own-half, Nafti took leave of his senses by clattering into James Coppinger.

Despite the boos from the Blues, the referee had no choice but to show him a straight red card, leaving McLeish’s men with a numerical disadvantage for three-quarters of the game.

But if the 18,165 St Andrew’s crowd still felt the official’s decision was harsh then he more than made up for it by letting Maik Taylor off the hook over a contentious penalty decision.

James Hayter had already made himself a hate-figure by appearing to dive over the outstretched leg of David Murphy after a pathetic penalty box pass by Carsley put the left-back in trouble.

The referee was probably right not to take any action against either player during that 12th minute incident but he should have penalised Birmingham’s goalkeeper for bringing down Lewis Guy just before the half-hour mark.

It looked to be a stonewall penalty and if the man in the middle thought otherwise then he ough to have made the Doncaster forward the fall-guy for diving and booked him instead.

Sean O’Driscoll’s League One play-off winners of last year could feel hard done by that decision and the overall outcome of the game after pressurising Blues before and after Nafti’s departure.

Donny, who had started the Championship campaign with a mixed bag of results including two wins, a defeat and a draw, came to St Andrew’s intent on attacking.

But, if Nafti was guilty of charging round like a bull in a china shop, then the Blues defence were more bullish than the famous bronze sculpture in Brum city centre.

Led by Liam Ridgewell, Birmingham, who switched to a 4-5-1 formation to cope with being a man down, repelled everything the Yorkshire visitors could through at them.

And when Donny did get a sight of goal after the break, Taylor tipped over Brian Stock’s stinger and superbly scrambled substitute Darren Byfield’s brilliant effort onto the post.

Blues were far from fluent, but early on Seb Larsson’s audacious 35-yard free-kick almost caught out keeper Neil Sullivan who then thwarted the Swede in a second half one-on-one.

By then Birmingham had make the breakthrough through with Jerome’s first goal of the season in his first league start - and the speedy striker was a worthy match-winner.

Having scored twice for the reserves in the 3-3 draw with Manchester United in midweek, Jerome justified his manager’s faith with the deciding goal on 46 minutes.

The England under-21 star applied a cool volleyed finish after substitute Marcus Bent used his first touch of the game to nod Ridgewell’s deep free-kick to Jerome near the penalty spot.

Picking up three points and protecting an impressive undefeated home record which dates back to the January loss to Chelsea was the most important outcome for McLeish’s men.

And not even Nafti’s reckless red card or Quincy petulantly storming down the tunnel after being taken off during the defensive reshuffle could dilute Birmingham’s delight.

Birmingham (4-4-2): Maik Taylor; Parnaby, Martin Taylor, Ridgewell, Murphy; Larsson, Nafti, Carsley, Quincy (McFadden 39); Phillips (Bent 46), Jerome (Kelly 83). Subs not used: Krysiak, Agustien.

Doncaster (4-3-3): Sullivan; O’Connor, Hird, Mills, Roberts (Woods 78); Coppinger, Stock, Wellens; Guy (Byfield 65), Hayter, G Taylor (Price 65). Subs not used: Chambers, Lockwood.

Referee: G Ward (Surrey).

Star man: Liam Ridgewell.