BIRMINGHAM CITY 1 PLYMOUTH ARGYLE 1
Birmingham City recovered from a potentially disastrous first half to salvage a valuable point on an afternoon of controversy at St Andrew’s.
After a positive start, Birmingham’s match was turned upside down within the space of 11 minutes with two events that had them staring at defeat.
Firstly Maik Taylor was harshly sent off and Plymouth awarded a penalty for an innocuous 50-50 challenge that, replays later showed, took place outside of the home side’s 18-yard box.
Then, after Paul Gallagher has converted the spot kick, Birmingham were hit with a serious injury blow to one of their key players.
Liam Ridgewell was stretched off in the 34th minute having broken his left leg. At that moment it appeared that the footballing gods were working against Alex McLeish’s side.
Fortunately for Birmingham, Ridgewell’s replacement Franck Queudrue headed home a 49th-minute equaliser to rescue the afternoon. On reflection the point gained turned out to be a vital one as it was enough to keep Birmingham in the Championship’s automatic promotion spots as Reading and Sheffield United could also only manage a draw.
At times yesterday St Andrew’s was a cauldron of anger and hatred and the person at the centre of the bad feeling was young referee Michael Oliver. Having bizarrely requested to have the floodlights switched on before the match despite it being a gloriously sunny afternoon, the 23-year-old match official then made a string of bad decisions, most notably Taylor’s 23rd-minute sending off. In total seven cards, one red and six yellow, were shown by the Northumberland official.
This was the second consecutive match at St Andrew’s where Birmingham had to face the bulk of the encounter with only ten men. However, just as they did during the 2-0 victory over Wolverhampton Wanderers, Blues overcame their numerical disadvantage to produce a display of courage.
Damien Johnson, in the side only due to Lee Carsley’s three-match suspension, typified Birmingham’s approach as the Northern Ireland international marshalled the midfield with authority.
McLeish reverted to the 4-4-2 formation and introduced Garry O’Connor, who had recovered from the virus that kept him out of Saturday’s match at Charlton Athletic, in place of Hameur Bouazza.
Birmingham made a positive start with Lee Bowyer going close with two early chances before Ridgewell and O’Connor had shots from inside the box kept out.
However, Plymouth were regularly capitalising on unnecessary gaps that were bring left at the back. On one occasion Alan Judge got the wrong side of Ridgewell before unleashing a shot that was palmed into the path of Ashley Barnes and promptly tapped into the net but the chance was judged to be off-side.
Yet the complexion of the game changed dramatically in the 23rd minute. Jamie Mackie chased on to a ball from deep and got in between Ridgewell and Taylor on the edge of the area. Mackie then looked to have beaten both before taking a tumble in the area.
Replays showed that Taylor has actually deflected the ball off Mackie with his thigh and that it was just the Plymouth man’s momentum that sent him to the ground. Yet, to the home crowd’s astonishment, Oliver awarded a penalty and sent Taylor off, meaning that Keith Fahey had to be sacrificed for Colin Doyle.
Gallagher struck the penalty down the middle and beat Doyle to leave Birmingham stunned.
Things got worse when Ridgewell collapsed to the ground following a challenge with Mackie. There was certainly no malice in Mackie’s tackle but it was enough to break the centre-half’s leg and Queudrue was thrown into the fray.
After the second half had started later than usual due to seven minutes of first-half stoppage time, Birmingham levelled terms four minutes later.
David Murphy’s free kick from just inside the Plymouth half found Queudrue rising at the back post and the Frenchman got enough of a touch with his head to direct the ball past Roman Larrieu.
From that point the momentum appeared to be with Birmingham and they looked capable of securing what had previously seemed an unlikely victory.
The hosts had penalty claims of their own in the 62nd minute when Murphy looked to have been pushed in the back in the area by Judge.
However Plymouth, who still have a lingering fear of relegation, weren’t completely out of it. Barnes again had the ball in the net after pouncing on the rebound from Mackie’s initial shot but again had the effort ruled out for off-side.
During the six minutes of stoppage time there were nervy moments at both ends. Barnes directed a header narrowly wide of Doyle’s right post before Radhi Jaidi nodded his own effort straight at Larrieu from Sebastian Larsson’s corner.
