Birmingham City 0, Aston Villa 1: Colin Tattum's big match verdict

Sep 14 2009 by Colin Tattum, Birmingham Mail

GABRIEL Agbonlahor again proved himself the scourge of the Second City derby for the blue half of Birmingham.

Two seasons after breaking Blues’ hearts with a late headed winner in the last meeting here at St Andrew’s he was at it again.

With just five minutes left Agbonlahor speared a header into the far corner from a free-kick that was initially met by John Carew and angled perfectly into his path.

Blues left Agbonlahor completely free ten yards out after Roger Johnson got on the wrong side of Carew, who proved an effective second-half substitute for Villa, and Barry Ferguson forsook his marking duties.

It was a sucker goal from their perspective and more than a little harsh as Blues arguably deserved an equal share of the 107th league derby.

This time round Blues were not mere patsies to a Villa juggernaut.

They were more competitive than they were certainly in that infamous 5-1 hammering, and there were some nice passages of play from Alex McLeish’s side who tried to perform with poise and no panic.

But, ultimately, Blues came up short and for all their approach work and endeavour were unable to unhinge a Villa defence that was sterling in its obduracy.

In many ways it was a story of the two defences.

There were readjustments for both teams, with Stephen Carr’s injury making it more problematic for Blues.

Stuart Parnaby went to left-back and Teemu Tainio debuted at right-back, neither of whom were found wanting.

For Villa, it was perhaps less of a gamble but still a big call nonetheless to field three debutants – Richard Dunne, James Collins, Stephen Warnock – in the rearguard and shunt Carlos Cuellar to right-back.

Yet that quartet were a solid wall that Blues struggled to knock down, and they dealt with everything – not least Sebastian Larsson’s well delivered crosses – with aplomb.