Birmingham 0 Manchester City 0:Shay Given thanked his lucky stars after saving a penalty to earn Manchester City a point at Birmingham but revealed his side remained disappointed with the result at St Andrew's.

The Republic of Ireland keeper denied James McFadden from 12 yards as both sides took a point apiece from a goalless clash.

He said: “It was a bit of luck I suppose. It’s a bit of a lottery, penalties, for goalkeepers, and luckily today I’ve gone the right way and got a strong enough hand to get it away.”

The spot-kick, for Nigel de Jong’s handball, was the first awarded against City this season, and Given quipped: “I hope it’s the last as well!

“It probably was a penalty looking back, I think Nigel’s hand was a bit high and it was the right decision from the referee.

“Luckily for us we’ve managed to keep it out and we’ve kept a clean sheet. I think we can play better than we did today and we’ll take a point.”

But he continued: “We’re disappointed, these are games where we’re looking to pick up three points.

“Credit to Birmingham, they had good spirit today and a good workrate in their team. It’s a hard enough place to come, they won last week and I suppose they took a lot of confidence from that.

“But we were coming here today looking for three points, and the same against Fulham last week when we threw away a two-goal lead, so we’ve been disappointed in the last couple of weeks.”

City were indebted to Given not only for his spot-kick heroics but also a string of other superb saves to deny McFadden, Lee Bowyer and Christian Benitez as the big-spending Eastlands outfit struggled to find their best form.

Birmingham's Barry Ferguson became the ninth player sent-off in the Premier League this weekend when he collected a second booking deep into injury time.