Birmingham City 0 Portsmouth 2

Last Wednesday a goal from Niko Kranjcar contributed to former England manager Steve McClaren losing his job, three days later a stunning strike by the same player might have played a part in preventing Eric Black from securing his.

The Birmingham City board are split on who should replace Steve Bruce in the St Andrew's hot seat and Black, Bruce's former assistant and required to resume that role at Wigan Athletic, is not just the bookmaker's favourite but the preferred option of at least one of the directors.

Yet Alex McLeish, the current Scotland head coach, is also in the running after expressing his desire to return to club management.

The Scotsman's agent has been in regular touch with Messrs Gold and Sullivan and must also be considered a live contender.

Having been put in temporary charge at least for this match, Black had the first opportunity to stake a claim and that his team were unable to produce anything other than the regular hard-luck story comes as a source of considerable frustration.

But in truth they never really looked like troubling a Portsmouth outfit, managed by McClaren's potential successor Harry Red-knapp, that was bigger, stronger, faster and more technically gifted in every department.

From goalkeeper David James, through experienced central defenders Sol Campbell and Sylvain Distin to the endlessly inventive John Utaka and energetic Benjani, Pompey oozed class in all departments. They didn't even play that well and still Birmingham had little answer.

Black did not have the same resources at his disposal. His first match in charge was little different to Bruce's last, the formation was the same, as were most of the personnel, and the outcome was all too familiar.

To be fair to Black he had his hands tied formation-wise. Cameron Jerome continues to recover from a hernia operation and Garry O'Connor was fit enough for only 20 minutes. There was little option but to hand Mikael Forssell a first start since early September.

Wilson Palacios' place went to Gary McSheffrey although the only other change was significant. Black opted to drop goalkeeper Maik Taylor and hand a league debut to Richard Kingson.

And just as McClaren had found by handing Scott Carson a competitive debut last week, Black discovered difficult situations are no environment in which to blood untried goalkeepers.

Unfortunately for Kingson his most telling contribution was to allow Sully Muntari's near-post drive through his hands and into the goal. It was a horrible gaffe and one from which Birmingham could not recover.

The Ghanaian redeemed himself with a brave stop from Benjani when Muntari's free kick fell into the striker's path but he will wonder if he could have done better with Kranjcar's late free kick. Struck well it was, beyond Kingson's reach it was not.

For the third match running a soft error cost Birmingham and for the third week running they also had good reason to feel hard done by.

Trailing to Muntari's 34th-minute opener Blues had a couple of opportunities to equalise and the splendid Liam Ridgewell was involved in both incidents.

First, with slightly more than a quarter of an hour to go, the centre back barrelled his way into the visitors' 18-yard area.

But with only James to beat he delayed for a fraction of a second and allowed Noe Pamarot

to come charging in. Whether the full back touched the ball before or after he tripped Ridgewell was not clear. Certainly the Birmingham faithful believed they had been denied yet another penalty.

Had Bruce been in charge he'd have probably gone into meltdown about how Birmingham had been robbed once more, Black was more taciturn and even expressed his conviction that the challenge had been legal.

Six minutes later Ridgewell thought he had restored parity. He headed a deep centre back across the area and when the ball rebounded to him the former Villa man curled a sumptuous shot into the net off the underside of James' crossbar.

St Andrew's went into meltdown despite the fact their captain remained incongruously impassive. He, after all, had seen the offside

flag. The poor chap should check his car wheels for black cat remains.

"Those were a couple of defining moments," Black said. "We had a really good start to the second half and put them under a fair bit of pressure and had one or two chances. If we had got the equaliser, who knows we may have gone on and won the game.

"But we came up against a top team. It's no surprise that Portsmouth are as high up the table as they are. We were playing against £10- or £11 million pound players today and they haven't won five or six away in a row with being an average outfit. You have to give them credit because they had slightly better players than us on the day."

Birmingham have not lost seven out of eight by being a good outfit. They are firmly installed in a relegation battle and the sooner the board decide who they want to lead them out of it and give that man the financial wherewithal to do it the better.

Scorers: Muntari (34), Kranjcar (82).
BIRMINGHAM CITY (4-4-1-1): Kingson; Kelly, Djourou, Ridgewell, Schmitz; De Ridder, Muamba, Nafti, McSheffrey (O'Connor, 74); Kapo; Forssell. Subs: Taylor, Queudrue, Parnaby, Larsson.
PORTSMOUTH (4-5-1): James; Johnson, Distin, Campbell, Pamerot; Kranjcar, Davis, Bouba Diop, Muntari, Utaka (Taylor, 81); Benjani. Subs: Ashdown, Hreidarsson, Mendes, Nugent.
Referee: M Atkinson (West Yorks).
Attendance: 22,089.
Bookings: Birmingham - Kapo, McSheffrey, Nafti; Portsmouth - Benjani, Davis.
Blues man of the match: Liam Ridgewell - defended solidly and led the search for an equaliser.