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

Nov 23 2009 by Colin Tattum, Birmingham Mail

Fulham were hurried along by Blues, who always got into the right holes as a compact unit and were much more feisty in the challenge.

Bowyer’s combative cleverness was clear and Stephen Carr’s reading of the game, the way he was so alert to danger, was admirable.

Blues’ front pair didn’t really get going, then again not many players or combinations did, such was it a match for galoshes rather than goshes.

A few years back, this game probably wouldn’t have been completed.

The St Andrew’s turf would have been too saturated and boggy from all the rain.

But this new pitch, laid in the summer as part of the “ten-point pledge”, is absolutely perfect and played so surely, despite the non-stop deluge.

It encourages the passing style McLeish is implementing and just goes to show that, given the proper investment and tools to do the job, head groundsman Martin Kelly and his crew can turn out a surface fit for any stadium, anywhere.

Joe Hart made one fine tip-over save in the second half from Clint Dempsey’s header yet there was not much else that troubled Blues.

Roy Hodgson strangely waited until the 74th minute to make a change, taking off Stephen Kelly on his return to St Andrew’s and sending Damien Duff into action.

Imagine had the roles been reversed and he was McLeish ... tin hats or what?

McLeish had, in fact, beaten him to it, withdrawing the low-key Christian Benitez to shore up the middle with five men.

Blues lost an avenue going forward but made it tougher for Fulham and, as a judgment call, and considering Johnson’s ailment, it was practical and fair as there was such a sureness, such a knowledge about the team and what they had to do.

There will be games that are more pleasing on the eye, played out in better weather against sides who are not as good as Fulham.

This was, though, the sort that keeps you in the Premier League and the sort that Blues would have transpired to have drawn, if not lost, two years back.