Reading (4-4-2): Marcus Hahnemann; Liam Rosenior, Andre Bikey, Michael Duberry (c), Dan Harding (Kevin Doyle 56); Jimmy Kebe, Jay Tabb, Jem Karacan (Marek Matejovski 54), Stephen Hunt; Shane Long, Dave Kitson. Subs not used: Adam Federici (GK), Kalifa Cisse, Brynjar Gunnarsson.

Blues (4-4-2): Maik Taylor; Stephen Carr, Radhi Jaidi, Martin Taylor, Djimi Traore; James McFadden (Sebastian Larsson 65), Damien Johnson, Lee Carsley (c), Keith Fahey; Cameron Jerome (Garry O’Connor 80), Kevin Phillips (Hameur Bouazza 72). Subs not used: Colin Doyle (GK), Marcus Bent.

Bookings: Jaidi (40), Traore (67)

Booked: Jaidi, Phillips, Traore.

Goals: Fahey 19, Phillips 60. Matejovsky 61.

Att: 23,879

Ref: Howard Webb (S Yorkshire).

Birmingham: Maik Taylor, Carr, Jaidi, Queudrue, Traore, Larsson (Jerome 54), Johnson, Bowyer, Fahey, O’Connor (Phillips 72), McFadden.
Subs Not Used: Doyle, Martin Taylor, Carsley.

Sent Off: Bowyer (60).

Booked: Queudrue, Bowyer, Jaidi.

Goals: Fahey 57.

Preston: Lonergan, Jones, Mawene, St. Ledger, Nolan, Sedgwick (Whaley 75), McKenna, Williamson, Wallace, Parkin (Brown 58), Mellor (Chilvers 90).
Subs Not Used: Neal, Carter.

Sent Off: Williamson (60), Wallace (90).

Booked: Parkin, Wallace.

Goals: McKenna 69, Wallace 89.

Att: 24,825

Ref: Phil Dowd (Staffordshire).

From the Gaffer

BBC Sport

Birmingham manager Alex McLeish: “We know that we blew this opportunity and we have one left to get up to the Premier League automatically.

“They were two brilliant goals and sometimes you can start splitting hairs to analyse why you lost.

“We had our opportunities, we had some of the game at 1-1, but it didn’t go for us.

“We have to go and win at Reading and I’ll make sure that every player is aware of my feelings on that and the positive side of things in the coming week.”

Watford: Loach, Mariappa, DeMerit, Williamson, Doyley, Cork, Jenkins, Rose (Harley 59), McAnuff, Smith, Hoskins (Rasiak 46).
Subs Not Used: Lee, Cauna, Stepanov.

Birmingham: Doyle, Carr, Jaidi, Queudrue (Traore 84), Murphy, Bowyer, Larsson (Phillips 64), Johnson, Fahey, O’Connor (Jerome 70), McFadden.
Subs Not Used: Lyness, Bouazza.

Goals: Jerome 73.

Att: 16,180

Ref: Tony Bates (Staffordshire).

From the Gaffer *From the official club site*

“Watford were always going to be a tough nut to crack but we started with the right approach and had it not been for some tremendous saves from the keeper we’d have gone in ahead at the break.

“After the interval the home side came back at us but we defended resolutely and what shone through, and what I’m extremely proud of, was how we dealt with the pressure. We kept calm heads, kept working hard and Cameron’s goal won it for us.”

“As I’ve said, I’m extremely proud of the performance and result today but we put that behind us now and concentrate entirely on preparing the players for the Preston game.

“Hopefully St. Andrew’s will be full and be rocking like it was when we played Wolves recently and we can go out there and put in an equally impressive display.

“We may not necessarily need to win our last two games but make no mistake about it that is our aim. We have to fully focus on picking up our results and not worry about what’s going on elsewhere – and that’s what we intend to do.”

Elliot, Butterfield, Ward, Hudson, Youga, Sam (Ambrose 90), Racon (Dickson 79), Zhi, Bailey, Shelvey, Kandol.
Subs Not Used: Randolph, Holland, Burton.

Booked: Bailey.

Birmingham: Maik Taylor, Carr, Jaidi, Ridgewell, Murphy, Larsson (Phillips 49), Bowyer, Johnson, Fahey, Bouazza (McFadden 65), Jerome (Bent 59).
Subs Not Used: Doyle, Queudrue.

Booked: Murphy, Jaidi.

Att: 20,022

Ref: Lee Probert (Wiltshire).

Well it’s always good to get points, and move up. Though I would have liked to get the full out of this match. I mean, for shame Birmingham this should have been the three pointer we needed. Charlton is the bottom of the Championship. We have more than half the total points that they have. And we only got 1 point out of them. Not funny. This needs to be worked on.

From the Gaffer

Birmingham boss Alex McLeish:
“It’s in our hands. I’m challenging the players to win all our games. We’ve got to believe we can and have a strong mentality.

“Sheffield United have hard games, the same as us. Nobody has an easy game.

“But it comes down to temperament and how much the players want it because there is nothing between the teams.”

Birmingham: Maik Taylor, Carr, Jaidi, Ridgewell, Murphy, Larsson (Bouazza 87), Carsley, Bowyer, Fahey, Phillips (McFadden 46), Jerome (O’Connor 57).
Subs Not Used: Doyle, Queudrue.

Sent Off: Carsley (37).

Goals: Jerome 45, O’Connor 69.

Wolverhampton: Hennessey, Foley, Craddock, Berra, Hill (Jarvis 46), Edwards (Vokes 62), Henry, Jones, Stephen Ward, Iwelumo (Keogh 40), Harewood.
Subs Not Used: Higgs, Stearman.

Booked: Henry.

Att: 25,935

Ref: Mark Halsey (Lancashire).

Does this mean that we are better than Wolves? Probably not, but I’ll use a common sport jargon from the States. “Throw the records out the window when these two teams play”. (ok substitute side for team). I don’t think that this will clinch the Championship for us, I still think Wolves have separated themselves from the pack.

Though if they continue to play like they did today, the gap might be erased. That, I don’t think will happen either, there’s just something about Wolves that I can’t put my finger on it. But my compadre Toby sure can.

Let’s just hope that the Blues can keep playing this well, on Saturday against bottom feeders Charlton.

Goals: Jerome 38.

Norwich: Marshall, Otsemobor, Doherty, Shackell, Bertrand, Gow, Clingan, Lappin, Carney, Mooney, Lee.
Subs Not Used: Nelson, Drury, McDonald, Smith, Adeyemi.

Booked: Lee, Marshall.

Goals: Clingan 53.

Att: 18,159

Ref: Mark Haywood (W Yorkshire).

Well another point, but it should have been three points. We need to get more goals, being second isn’t all that bad. It continues my statement of wanting the Blues to go up. After all, would we be as bad as West Brom? Probably not.

From the Gaffer Alex McLeish

“We started too casually and the players forgot what I had told them for recent home games.

“We had a good opportunity to shut the game out but then shot ourselves in the foot giving away a free-kick on the edge of the penalty area.

“We have given away far too many free-kicks away on the edge of the area in recent games and somewhere along the line you are going to get punished, as we were on this occasion. ”

Barnsley (4-4-2): Heinz Muller; Marciano Van Homoet (Mounir El Haimour 83), Darren Moore, Dennis Souza, Rob Kozluk; Daniel Bogdanovic, Bobby Hassell, Hugo Colace, Jamal Campbell-Ryce; Jon Macken (Adam Hammill 77), Michael Mifsud. Unused subs: Luke Steele (gk), Martin Davaney, Maceo Rigters.

Booked: Hassell 43,

Goals: Mifsud 82

Blues (4-4-2): Maik Taylor; Stephen Carr, Martin Taylor, Radhi Jaidi, Franck Queudrue; Sebastian Larsson, Damien Johnson (Scott Sinclair 62), Lee Carsley, Keith Fahey; Carlos Costly (Hameur Bouazza 74), Cameron Jerome. Unused subs: Colin Doyle (gk), Garry O’Connor, Ulises De La Cruz.

Booked: Carr 28, Johnson 40

Goals: Taylor 85

Referee: Graham Horwood

Attendance: 11,299 (564 Blues fans)

All HAIL Martin Taylor! He secures a point for the Blues! So I guess not having as many strikers as we could, didn’t hurt. But I’d still like to see more than point earned folks. I know it’s hard to score, or the final scores would be basketball type. Is it asking for too much to see a 2-1 or a 3-1 scoreline favoring the Blues? Maybe this year.

From The Gaffer
as always it’s from the club’s website:

“”Although we didn’t necessarily have quite as much of a high tempo as our two recent home games we didn’t play badly and I think no-one could have complained had we come away with an even better result than a draw.

“We were organised and defended well so it was a blow to concede in the manner that we did. However no-one was more distraught about what happened as Martin Taylor was.

“But you need character and determination to succeed in this game and Martin refused to let it get to him. Within minutes he was the person reacting quickest in the box following a saved free-kick and he scored a very important goal for us.”

Blues: Maik Taylor, Martin Taylor, Stephen Carr, Radhi Jaidi, Franck Queudrue, Lee Bowyer, Sebastian Larsson, Lee Carsley, Keith Fahey (Scott Sinclair), Cameron Jerome (Hameur Bouazza), Marcus Bent (Carlos Costly).

Subs not used: Colin Doyle, Ulises de la Cruz.

Bookings: None

Southampton: Kelvin Davis, Chris Perry, Marek Saganowski, Jan-Paul Saeijs, Rudi Skacel (Ryan Smith), Andrew Surman, Jason Euell, David McGoldrick (Matthew Paterson), Morgan Schneiderlin (Zoltan Liptak), Simon Gillett, Lloyd James.

Subs not used: Tommy Forecast, Paul Wotton, Zoltan Liptak.

Bookings: McGoldrick (27), Saeijs (60), Liptak (90 + 2)

Referee: Martin Atkinson (West Yorkshire)

Attendance: 16, 735

I should have a good feeling about beating Southampton, but you know it’s just like it’s a meh match. All that really matters is that the Blues won. And I guess that’s good enough. The added caveat is that now they are a full four points up on Reading. Still can’t make too much heading on the Wanders, which stinks, but they are cruising right now. Hopefully, they can get cocky and lose their footing. Nah, that’s not going to happen.

What is bad, is the strikers. There’s only two healthy if that. So tonight against Barnsley it’s only going to be Costly and Jerome. So they can’t get injured. Maybe, Alex will call up someone from reserves or from the academy for the match.

However, Kevin Phillips and Gary O’Connor are on their way back, so there’s some hope.

From the gaffer

As always from the club’s website:

“The spirit and the way the players responded to the challenge with that little bit of added pressure showed a great mentality and I’m proud them.”

“bentWe are gutted by that because the last couple of games Benty and Cameron were instrumental in our victory the other night and have been playing to their strengths.

“Cameron had a bit of cramp it was more precautionary to make sure he’s okay for Tuesday night.”

“We’ve got our fingers crossed that Phillips and O’Connor are just around the corner to come back to the squad.”