Birmingham 0-0 Blackburn: Spoils shared at St Andrew's

Birmingham City have lost their early-season impetus and dropped more valuable home points in a dour 0-0 draw against struggling Blackburn Rovers in the Sky Bet Championship at St Andrew's on Tuesday.

It was Birmingham's first point in three games and the third successive match in which they have failed to score, while defensive-minded Blackburn were intent on at least sharing the spoils and were well worth their point.

Surprisingly, both teams operated with only one striker which explained the lack of goals, although the game hardly panned out as Birmingham would have liked.

They had hoped, after their third home defeat in four games, the return of American defender Jonathan Spector and Andrew Shinnie would have sparked off a much-needed improvement.

Unfortunately this did not materialise as battling Blackburn experienced little difficulty shutting out Gary Rowett's Blues.

There was certainly a more positive start compared to the 2-0 losing performance against Wolves on Saturday, when Birmingham lacked their early-season bite.

David Cotterill provided an early service of crosses to put Blackburn under pressure, but Rovers survived with an obvious defensive blockade.

As a result, Jordan Rhodes was left isolated up front in the hope that he could poach a goal to add to the eight he has scored this season.

But it was Tom Lawrence who carved out the best opportunity for Rovers. He tenaciously worked his way between Paul Caddis and Michael Morrison but then aimlessly shot high and wide.

There were no explosive players in the Birmingham side and this eventually enabled Rovers to counter-attack.

Most of their moves were aimed at bringing Craig Conway into the game but generally Birmingham's defence was water-tight.

Following a good spell of attacking play from Blackburn, the Blues gave an indication of their intentions by producing some strong pressure when Demari Gray belatedly made an impressive contribution.

Blackburn, however, remained firm in defence with Shane Duffy and Grant Hanley emerging as stalwarts.

Duffy was not adverse to moving forward and managed to get in a header on target but it lacked real pace and Tomasz Kuszczak had little difficulty making a comfortable save.

With very few incidents of real note, the game was hardly a spectacle with Birmingham operating in fits and starts when there was a real need for some urgency.

Birmingham attempted to make an explosive start to the second period with Gray forcing his way through to put in a powerful long-range drive which Jason Steele competently saved.

The 454 travelling Blackburn fans momentarily had their hopes raised in the 54th minute when Duffy moved up for a Ben Marshall corner and arrowed in a fine header only to see Kuszczak rise to the occasion with an equally fine close-range save.

In a late Birmingham attacking flurry, Steele was not to be outdone as he demonstrated minutes later when he flung himself to his right to make a spectacular mid-air save to keep out a Cotterill rocket.

Rowett demanded a tough performance and was satisfied with a goalless draw at St. Andrew's. The Birmingham manager had called for a change of attitude following recent indifferent performances and his players responded by keeping their first home clean sheet of the season.

"The players did what I asked of them on the night," Rowett said. "It is a first clean sheet at home this season, which is unbelievable. I told them not to give away the first goal, keep our shape and keep our patience.

"I asked them to be tougher defensively. I thought we were a little soft on Wolves and Hull in the previous two games. I certainly didn't want to lose three games on the spin. That was the reality of the game because runs like that are very damaging to confidence.

"We kept a clean sheet and didn't give Jordan Rhodes one chance on goal. I was not disappointed [with the result]. Yes, I could have thrown in a lot of attacking options and gone for it in the last 10 minutes. [But] we are not quite ready to do that style."

Blackburn boss Gary Bowyer was also pleased with another positive performance from his side.

"If you look at the key moments of the game against a team which has done magnificently well to get into the play-off zone, we played really well," Bowyer said. "They paid us a massive amount of respect with the way they set up getting bodies behind the ball. It was something new for my lads to deal with.

"I thought we had the key moments of the game. Lawrence in the first half for instance when he did well to get into a goal-scoring position. He has been wonderful since joining us.

"To come to a team who are in the play-offs and perform the way we did was positive."

The result leaves Birmingham in sixth spot, nine points above 15th-placed Rovers.