Birmingham City 0 Sporting Gijon 0

Aug 9 2009 by Colin Tattum, Sunday Mercury

For the first 10 minutes Blues hardly got a touch of the ball as Gijon stroked it around nicely in the sun.

The new St Andrew’s pitch, relaid with undersoil heating at a cost of £500,000, looked lush and encouraged the passing.

Blues tried to construct moves like their visitors rather than hit and hope, and they made the first real inroads in midway through the opening half.

Stephen Carr curled a ball over the top for the breaking Bowyer, and he scampered menacingly towards the byline.

He clipped the ball across to the far post where Keith Fahey caught it well on the side of his right boot and sent it goalwards.

Ivan Cuellar, though, produced a brilliant stop by clawing it out from behind him as he flung himself to his right.

Blues appealed that the ball had crossed the goal line by the linesman was well positioned and indicated in the negative.

From a Sebastian Larsson free-kick in the 37th minute Roger Johnson headed back across the penalty area to cause panic among the Gijon ranks.

Both Jerome and Bowyer hacked away at the ball as it dropped at the feet of Cuellar and Gijon managed to scramble the danger away.

For all their neat and precise approach work, Gijon hardly troubled Joe Hart at all in the first-half.

After the restart, Blues threatened first when Carr slipped a ball down the inside right channel for Bowyer.

He bore down on Pablo but could only muster a shot from an angle that the substitute goalkeeper grasped at his feet.

By the hour mark, Gijon’s entire starting eleven had been changed and Blues replaced Bowyer with Garry O’Connor and reverted to 4-4-2.

Gijon almost went ahead in the 68th minute when Jose Angel tried his luck from 25-yards after advancing from left-back but his fierce shot rose just over the crossbar.

Roger Johnson rose high to plant a corner wide and in the 90th minute Blues thought they were about to win it when Fahey’s trickery set up a chance for O’Connor only for Ivan Hernandez to get a vital deflection in the six-yard box.

Those isolated incidents apart, the game petered out to a quiet close in front of 10,360 fans.

Michel cut a tall and assured figure in the Gijon midfield. Technically adroit and a crisp passer, he didn’t venture forward too much but always kept the play moving before being substituted among a raft of changes by the visitors.

As for Vignal, who has spent the last five days on trial at Blues, McLeish said he had done himself ‘no harm’.

Vignal is still contracted to Lens but available for a nominal fee.

“I know exactly what he can bring us and he did himself no harm,” said McLeish. “He’s still a player with Lens in France and we need to weigh up the situation.”

Blues: Hart (Maik Taylor ht), Carr, Vignal, Roger Johnson, Queudrue, Larsson (McSheffrey 76), Carsley, Ferguson, Bowyer (O’Connor 55), Jerome (Phillips 66), Fahey.Not used: Damien Johnson, Sammons, Parnaby.

Gijon: Cuellar (Pablo ht), Rivera (Landeira 61), Gregory (Hernandez 61), Michel (Carlinos 61), Botia (Gerard 61), De las Cuevas (Mateo 61), Canella (Matabuena ht), Castro (Maldonado ht), Camacho (Bilic ht), Sastre (Pedro 61), Barral (Angel ht).

Star man: Lee Bowyer.