Birmingham City 1, Bolton 2: Colin Tattum's big match verdict

Sep 28 2009 by Colin Tattum, Birmingham Mail

They stuck to their mode of trying to play through but as Fabrice Muamba sat deep to scrap and scuffle, and Bolton tried to hurry Blues up elsewhere, it was uncomfortable going and a presence was required up top, the ball needed to stick up there.

Gary Cahill and Zat Knight were having a bullying time of it and Bolton – using a 4-5-1 themselves – hadn’t been put on to the back foot from the off, only towards the end of the first half did Blues fire.

A goal down, and as the game’s pattern evolved, Blues needed a change, inspiration from somewhere.

After ten minutes Tamir Cohen glanced in a near-post flick by Kevin Davies from a long throw. It was obvious what was coming but Roger Johnson decided to rush in to challenge Davies amid a crowd of bodies and Ferguson was flat-footed behind him.

O’Connor came on in the 61st minute and, ironically, the switch had little influence on Blues’ performance.

Kevin Phillips’ 76th-minute introduction – left-back Gregory Vignal was substituted – reaped reward when he received a return flicked pass from Benitez and strode on to get a better angle from which to drive in low from 20 yards, as only he can.

Blues had gambled by this time, Benitez had gone wide in a front three of sorts and Fahey dropped to left-back of sorts.

That was no excuse for Blues’ docile response to the restart. Davies bulldozed forward and was fouled by Ferguson. Matt Taylor’s free-kick smacked off the post and Chung-Yong Lee reacted quickly and kept his calm to follow up and score.

In less than two minutes after appearing to have salvaged something, Blues tossed it away. And not for the first time.