ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE: Birmingham City 2 Manchester City 2:MANCHESTER CITY will view fun with even more suspicion following an enjoyable match that saw them twice surrender a lead to bold Birmingham. The second equaliser was claimed from the penalty spot by Craig Gardner in the 77th minute after one veteran substitute, Patrick Vieira, had carelessly fouled another, Kevin Phillips.
The merriment was marred only by an ugly injury involving the visitors’ centre-half Micah Richards that was to prove less serious than it appeared.
City can look stolid at times, but there was no sign here of the kind of grinding play occasionally associated with them. Edin Dzeko, the €30 million signing from Wolfsburg was, with Carlos Tevez, in a pleasing if rather old-fashioned partnership of strikers.
The boldness worked almost immediately. With two minutes gone, David Silva worked his way into the area from the right and the Argentine, with tenacity to complement his skill, resisted the challenge of Martin Jiranek to squeeze a shot into the corner.
All the same, there was an unlikely openness to the contest. Birmingham hardly looked discouraged. Well before they equalised, the threat had been shown. Cameron Jerome had headed a little high from a David Bentley cross and a chip by Nikola Zigic had to be tipped over by Joe Hart.
City, however, could not withstand the pressure for long and Birmingham levelled in the 23rd minute. Zigic appeared to have got the faintest of touches on the whipped free-kick from the left by David Bentley that found the net.
The tone of the evening darkened, though, with the injury to Richards, whose momentum saw him crash into team-mate Nigel de Jong. The incident was so disturbing that seven minutes of stoppage time would be needed and a neck brace was applied before the centre-half was carried to the stand. By the interval, however, there was news that he had come round and was in reasonable shape, although a hospital visit was required.
Despite that unsettling episode, there continued to be vivacity in this match. City regained the lead with a brutal, curling free-kick from Aleksandar Kolarov in the 39th minute following a foul by Gardner on Dzeko.
City ought to be cut out for eminence but, for all their fabulous wealth, they are a club who speak only of relatively modest ambitions. Having come fifth last year, the immediate target is to get into the Champions League. The side are not far from having their papers franked for the move into the Continent’s elite.
Even so it is hard to see them tracking down Manchester United on the domestic front. They are even viewed as drab to some degree, but the enterprise here was only a hint of the style they seek in the long-term.
Birmingham were undeterred and had a determination to take the play to their opponents. Whether because of their endeavour or simply out of a conservatism urged on them by the manager Roberto Mancini, City took stock early in the second. Such a policy was not wholly convincing when Alex McLeish’s side had nothing to lose.
Kolo Toure had taken over Richards’s role, but he was not quite as equipped for the aerial approach from Birmingham that was increasingly marked. While the visitors would have understood that the place of real safety was in the other half of the pitch, they could not settle there as soon as they would have liked. There was defending to be done.
There was a lull of sorts, but City were still neglecting to use sufficient panache. They did have breakaways in mind, but Birmingham, with a third of the game left, were not so reckless as to let themselves be outnumbered.
The hosts’ captain Stephen Carr was still fortunate, though, not to concede a penalty in the 62nd minute when a James Milner cross came off his right arm, which was a little way from his torso.
The visitors were once more seeking command, but Birmingham still found a way to earn a share of the spoils.
Guardian Service
BIRMINGHAM CITY:Foster, Carr, Johnson, Jiranek, Ridgewell, Bentley, Ferguson, Bowyer (Beausejour 75), Gardner, Jerome (Phillips 70), Zigic. Subs not used: Doyle, Larsson, Fahey, Hleb, Davies.
MAN CITY:Hart, Boateng, Richards (Toure 35), Kompany, Kolarov, Milner, De Jong (Vieira 46), Barry, Silva, Tevez, Dzeko. Subs not used: Given, Zabaleta, Lescott, Jo, Guidetti. Booked: De Jong, Kolarov.
Referee:Kevin Friend (Leicestershire).
