Phil Neumann's controversial first-half goal earned Birmingham their first win in five matches, sealing a 1-0 victory over Preston in the Sky Bet Championship.

The 28-year-old had glanced in in Alexander Cochrane's dead-ball delivery in the 33rd minute but replays appeared to show the ball hitting his his arm on the way through.

Referee Lewis Smith ignored the home team's complaints and the goal stood as Birmingham held on to beat a Preston side with only one defeat in their last eight games.

It marked North End's first home defeat in the league this season but they had enough chances to get something more out of a hard-fought encounter.

In the opening stages, within a minute of each other, both Keshi Anderson and Andrija Vukcevic nearly bagged the opener with two crossed deliveries that inadvertently forced Daniel Iversen and James Beadle into some awkward positional adjustments.

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Preston had the first decent chance of note through Michael Smith, whose 15th-minute header from Ben Whiteman's corner had to be cleared off the line by Christoph Klarer.

Smith again had another headed chance later on after good work from Odel Offiah and Jordan Storey but the target-man headed over under pressure.

But Birmingham made the decisive breakthrough just after the half-hour mark as Neumann got ahead of his marker to head Cochrane's deep free-kick past Iversen at his near post.

It was nearly a quickfire second for the visitors as Jay Stansfield raced clear and squared the ball for Lewis Koumas, taking Iversen out of the equation, but Lewis Gibson reacted brilliantly to block the shot.

Preston nearly equalised in the 42nd minute as Jordan Storey latched onto another Whiteman cross, but Beadle made the save comfortably.

Shortly after, all-action Whiteman made Beadle work again with a strike from outside the box.

After a quiet start to the second half, Stansfield nearly netted on the hour with an enticing bending shot from just outside the box and Birmingham's record signing went closer just a few minutes later, seeing his goalbound header from a corner in a crowded penalty area crash off the post.

Beadle had been solid throughout but, in the 69th minute, he was caught in no-man's-land by Milutin Osmajic, who skipped past the City stopper but was denied on an angle by Neumann.

Substitute Demarai Gray showed a glimpse of his top-level class six minutes later, neatly taking a bouncing ball in his stride, but he dragged wide from inside the box with a swivelled finish.

Fellow substitute Thierry Small went even closer just moments later, drilling a low cross-cum-shot across the box with a deflection taking it agonisingly wide of the post after Birmingham made a mess of clearing their lines from Whiteman's low cross.

Smith and Lewis Dobbin, who came on for Andrew Hughes, both sent late shots at Beadle but the Blues held on for the victory.

The managers

Preston's Paul Heckingbottom:

"[The officials] shouldn't be allowed to have that much of an influence on a game of football. It's scandalous, really.

"Anyone who watches us knows we are refereed to a different standard to everyone else and you can see that out there today.

"I wasn't going to say anything about it at all but when I'm looking back, I feel I have to defend the club and the players and the fans.

"I'm a fan of VAR because we'd have won that game with VAR - would have won so many games last season off VAR. That's my point but 100 per cent we're refereed differently to other teams.

"VAR for me is bringing another person into it who absolutely doesn't deserve to be in the game and knows nothing about football. Absolute nonsense, and it kills the atmosphere in stadiums.

"I hate it as a fan but when you're involved in football, when you're witnessing that, no one associated with Preston deserves that."

Birmingham's Chris Davies:

"We were excellent. I think we fully deserved it. I think we started really brightly. I was really happy at the start we made because you know what's going to be like here. [They're] a good team, in good form, and are very strong here at Deepdale. I think we had to start well.

"I thought we did that aggressively, (were) strong in the duels, and then we looked bright when we had possession.

"There were some nice passages and we got forward well a few times. So I really liked (the performance) and we were rewarded with the goal and then I really felt we could have gone two up.

"I think Lewis (Koumas) had a chance to score (a minute later), but I think the defender cleared it when the keeper was out of the goal.

"I said to the players that we needed to be brilliant at the basics tonight and I thought that was a good example of doing that."

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