Victorious Birmingham close the gap on Wolves
Alex McLeish watched his side cut the gap at the top
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Monday, 06, Apr 2009 10:24
Birmingham defeated Championship leaders Wolves 2-0 at St Andrews despite playing most of the game with ten men.
The home side had skipper Lee Carsley sent-off for an atrocious tackle on Wolves striker Chris Iwelumo. But Wolves failed to take advantage of the extra man and City cut the lead at the top of the Championship to two points with goals from Cameron Jerome and Gary O'Connor.
Birmingham had the first real chance of the game after a poor back pass from Stephen Ward gave Jerome the chance to have a free run at the Wolves goal, but Wayne Hennessey did superbly to sprint out and smother the ball at the feet of the Birmingham striker and Jerome also failed to score as the ball rebounded to him.
Free-kick expert Sebastian Larsson then saw a beautifully curled free-kick go just wide of the Wolves goal.
Carsley was rightly given his marching orders after 37 minutes as he lunged-in with two-feet at Iwelumo and unfortunately the Scotland international striker had to be stretchered off.
The sending off seemed to lead to Wolves losing their concentration at the back and they failed to clear a free-kick in first-half injury-time and Jerome bundled the ball home despite Hennessey having one hand on the ball.
Birmingham sealed the points with a second goal after the break as O'Connor found space in the penalty area and expertly skipped pass Hennessey and finished from a tight angle.