SOMEBODY forgot to tell West Midlands Police, but once again the Second City derby was all about fine dividing lines.
But, while the understandably high police presence kept Birmingham and Villa fans apart at St Andrew’s, there was again very little to separate the two fierce rivals on the field.
Fine lines... Villa were the width of the woodwork away from scoring on four – three legitimately – occasions. Fines lines... Blues were several borderline decisions away from penalties.
Fine lines... Villa have their heads above the relegation zone only by virtue of more goals scored than Wigan, while Blues remain just one point better off.
The police’s ‘thin blue line’ was about as thin as Birmingham’s obese Bluenose, Barry Austin, with bus-loads of bobbies effectively enlisted to prevent a repeat of the ugly scenes which marred the Carling Cup semi-final.
But there’s barely room for a Rizla between Brum’s football clubs at the moment. Not only were the points shared for the second successive Premier League encounter, so too were the stats.
Villa shaded possession, 55 per cent to 45, Blues edged shots on target 4-3, shots off target were level at 10-10 as was the 14-all foul count with the visitors winning seven corners to the hosts’ five.
Gerard Houllier and Alex McLeish’s strugglers also took it in turns to dominate the derby. Villa first, then Blues, then Villa, then Blues and so on and so forth.
It’s hardly surprising. Lately, these games have been closer than the 3.2 miles between St Andrew’s and Villa Park. Even when Villa were on a remarkable run of Second City successes under Martin O’Neill most of the matches were close. Same goes for last month’s League Cup last four encounter.
But for the infamous 5-1 in April 2008, neither side’s superiority has shone through. Ironically, that was the last time John Carew truly stamped his mark on this fixture when he bullied the Blues backline and helped himself to a brace.
Carew is a long way from the fans’ favourite famously pictured grinning and gesturing the scoreline with his fingers as he drove away from Villa Park that day.
Even so, the scene was set for him to be the hero in his first start since the Arsenal defeat in November, first action since the loss at Liverpool and first appearance in the match-day squad since the mid-December win over West Brom.
Carew did as Carew does, by posing early problems for Blues with his giant physique and Villa’s first two efforts against the woodwork came from his aerial prowess.
After nine minutes Carew glanced a header onto the bar after Marc Albrighton and Kyle Walker combined down the right to find Gabby Agbonlahor and after 21 minutes was again a coat of paint away from converting another Walker cross, although he was penalised for a foul on Johnson.
