Wednesday, 2 January 2013

Birmingham City 0 Cardiff City 1

Jack Butland's unfortunate gaffe gifted promotion favourites Cardiff a win against the battling Brummie babes.

Butland has been strongly tipped with a £5 million move to Southampton in this month's transfer window, but may not have impressed watching scouts with his part in Cardiff's winner.

Striker Joe Mason sealed a fourth victory on the bounce for the Championship leaders four minutes before half time.

England keeper Butland saved a low shot from winger Craig Conway, but only managed to knock the ball back into the danger area and Mason pounced to plunder his fifth goal of the campaign from ten yards.

But manager Lee Clark defended his stopper and was still pleased with his side. He said:

"It was a freak goal. The ball hit Jack's heel, hit him on the back of the head and landed at Mason's feet.

"The performance out there - individually and collectively - was excellent. My only little criticism would be that we tried to walk the ball into the net rather than pull the trigger, but I can't be upset with what my players gave me today."

The win gave Cardiff a seven point cushion at the top of the table.

Cash-strapped Birmingham boss Lee Clark will be hoping to strengthen his squad with funds made available by the transfer of Butland and he needs some experienced heads.

Clark was forced to play SIX teenagers against the Championship leaders and was also forced to bump up untried nineteen year old reserve Marcel Henry-Francis to the bench when he lost midfielder Hayden Mullins in the warm up.

And the youngsters did their boss proud by putting in the sort of shift they will need to climb away from the threat of relegation.

Experienced defender Curtis Davies, 27, kept Birmingham in the game less than two minutes after the break when he cleared a twelve yard strike from Conway off his goal line with Butland beaten.

Clark's kids had the better of the first half before Mason's goal and came closest to breaking the deadlock.

In the fifteenth minute nineteen year old West Ham loanees Ravel Morrison and Rob Hall linked up to feed winger Wade Elliott, 34, but the 'old man' of the team fired narrowly wide from just inside the box.

Five minutes later striker Nathan Redmond, 18, forced keeper David Marshall to save a shot from the right angle of the area at foot of his near post.

And in the 37th minute Marshall was called on to punch clear Hall's goal bound free kick from the right flank.

Bluebird's chief Malky Mackay was pleased with the win and said:

"To have four wins out of our over the festive period - we couldn't ask for anything more. And to come away with a tenth clean sheet of the season is something we're absolutely delighted about. It was a tough game and we had to battle for what we got."


My piece from this morning's paper

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