Birmingham City extended their unbeaten Championship run to eight games with a goalless draw against Nottingham Forest this afternoon.
The Blues had the bulk of the chances at St Andrew's, but were both wasteful and brilliantly denied multiple times by goalkeeper Karl Darlow.
Forest, who had Darius Henderson sent off in a fiery final 10 minutes, have now won just once in their last six to drop outside of the Championship playoff places.
Below, Sports Mole digs a little deeper into the action.
Match statistics:
Birmingham:
Shots 16
On target 3
Possession 42%
Corners 6
Fouls 12
Forest:
Shots 5
On target 2
Possession 58%
Corners 5
Fouls 13
Was the result fair?
Not really, no. As you can see above, Birmingham had far more shots than Forest and were unable to find the net because of their wastefulness and also Darlow's performance between the sticks. Even though Forest did well to have more of the possession, they did little with it.
Birmingham's performance
Defensively, the Blues were excellent but the back four were let down by the profligacy at the other end. Nikola Zigic was the biggest culprit for missing chances as opposed to being denied by Darlow's excellence. Chris Burke, down the right, regularly delivered excellent crosses for the big Croat but, despite his size, he isn't the greatest athlete and often mistimed his jump and could only head tamely over.
Forest's performance
Billy Davies will be delighted to have left the other side of the Midlands with a point. His side were lacklustre today and the poor performance was made worse by Henderson's late red card. The big striker, who had only been on the field for a matter of minutes, will now not play again until the New Year after squaring up and giving Paul Robinson a squeezing bear hug that referee Robert Madley did not agree with. The final 10 minutes saw four yellows and a red card as both sets of players lost their temper. It has been reported that Forest will spend big in January to land a striker and on today's showing, they certainly need one. Also, Davies wore a blue jumper for a trip to a side called the Blues. Never had a chance of winning!
Sports Mole's man of the match
Karl Darlow: Burke ran the Forest keeper close with his tireless running and excellent crossing down the right, but Darlow's goalkeeping cannot be ignored. In the first half especially he made three superb saves to keep out Tom Adeyemi, Kyle Bartley and Burke. The first to deny Adeyemi was especially good as he sprung to his right to tip the midfielder's powerful effort around the post.
Biggest gaffe
Zigic was anything but clinical all afternoon and in the first half he somehow failed to make contact with a brilliant Burke cross.
Referee performance
Madley had a nightmare final 10 minutes to endure as players from both teams lost it. Henderson's reaction to Robinson's challenge was a weird one as he embraced the Blues defender in anger, but did not take a swipe or dip his head. The lack of a cool head probably did warrant a dismissal, but Forest may consider appealing.
What next?
Birmingham: The Blues can make it eight without defeat when they travel to Wigan Athletic on Boxing Day this Thursday.
Forest: Games don't get any easier for Forest as they host high-flying Queens Park Rangers on the day after Christmas.
Pascal Lemesre
