Birmingham seal vital win

Wednesday, 19, Apr 2006 10:29

Birmingham City have moved out of the bottom three of the Premiership after a 2-1 win over Blackburn Rovers at St Andrews.

Blues old-boy Robbie Savage looked to have pushed Brum closer to the drop when he struck a second-half equaliser after Nicky Butt had opened the scoring for the home side.

However, substitute Mikael Forssell popped up with three minutes remaining to give Birmingham a vital three points in their fight against relegation.

The home side knew that they had to take advantage of their game in hand over their fellow strugglers and they began brightly as Julian Gray had a sweetly-struck volley tipped over by Brad Friedel.

Much of Birmingham's plight this season though can be attributed to a lack of goals and this looked to be costing them once more as front-men Emile Heskey and Chris Sutton both wasted good opportunities to give them a first-half lead.

They were nearly made to pay early in the second-half as, in a rare threatening effort, Blackburn defender Zurab Khizanishvili slammed a header against the post from a corner.

Despite riding their luck a little, it was Birmingham who took the lead on 62 minutes as Butt turned in Gray's cross from close range.

Things seemed to be going well for the home side until 12 minutes before the end when Savage, who had been booed throughout the contest, was first to react when Maik Taylor kept out substitute Sergio Peter's stinging drive to score his first goal for Blackburn since his move from St Andrews.

Fate wasn't to have the final say though as three minutes from time, Finnish striker Forssell controlled Gray's centre and smashed the ball past Friedel to lift Birmingham out of the drop zone on goal difference.