Fulham 0 Birmingham City 1
MANAGERS OF NEWLY PROMOTED teams stating that their players need to battle and give their all to have a chance of staying up is hardly a new phenomenon. Steve Bruce, the Birmingham City manager, emphasised the need for a fighting spirit again yesterday. Such pronouncements normally accompany a long and ultimately unsuccessful relegation struggle, but Bruce’s side are more than capable of surviving their first season in the Barclaycard Premiership.
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Fulham defender Rufus Brevett
upset by Morrison and family |
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Asking them to be pretty as well as effective, however, might be unrealistic: they are picking up cards as well as wins. Birmingham’s arrival in England’s top flight may seem to them like a fairytale, but yesterday there seemed to be plenty of malice in wonderland as they moved above Fulham in the table with a victory at Loftus Road that was more memorable for the attritional attitude of the teams than the game itself. Birmingham collected seven yellow cards and one red — Darren Purse was sent off for a second bookable offence — but now have 23 points and are in thirteenth position in the table.
“I asked (my players) afterwards who wasn’t booked, it was easier,” Bruce said. He laid the blame at a familiar target: the pettiness of officialdom’s rules. “Old-fashioned common sense is going out of the window,” he said. “It baffles me really, because the conditions were treacherous.” In truth though, nearly every card dished out by Andy D’Urso was justified.
The persistent drizzle and mauve sky provided a fittingly moody background to the game. Like a Tennessee Williams play, there was ample pent-up tension and the threat of violence. That did not quite break out, fortunately, but nor was there much redeeming eloquence or beauty beyond Jovan Kirovski’s first-half goal. Kirovski played a one-two with Clinton Morrison in the seventh minute and guided the ball into the far corner from just inside the area with a curling shot across Edwin van der Sar.
Fulham were slapdash all over the field and, as with their Uefa Cup exit at the hands of Hertha Berlin on Thursday, their failure to convert chances proved costly.
Always seemingly delighted to be cast by a crowd as the pantomime villain, Robbie Savage, the Birmingham midfield player, was booed from the start by the home fans because of his role in Steve Marlet’s sending off in November and revelled in the contest. Miraculously he escaped a yellow card himself. One moment near the end, when Savage conspicuously fell to the ground clutching his ankle after a Rufus Brevett tackle yet almost immediately rose up and jogged off, attracted the ire of Chris Coleman, once his Wales international team-mate and now a Fulham coach.
Brevett and Morrison began a feud after Morrison felt that the Fulham defender had lunged in over-aggressively as Morrison wasted time by the corner flag. They showed no inclination to end the aggravation at the final whistle and trudged off eyeballing each other. Nor did things stop there: the two, and Morrison’s mother, were reportedly involved in a heated disagreement in the players’ lounge afterwards.
Bruce shrugged off the fouls as “a bit of exuberance, but nothing serious”. “What you see is what you get . . .” he said. “We are committed, we have a go” — he could hardly claim anything else. The FA, who are likely to land Birmingham with a fine as a result of the number of bookings, will be less impressed.
Christian Damiano, the Fulham assistant manager, was diplomatic. “They play their football, we have to accept the referee’s decision,” he said. Things are rosier in the West Midlands: one year after Bruce swapped his “gardening leave” for the Birmingham job, his team are giving him commitment in spades. “They’re all tough games in the Premiership,” Bruce said. But they are not all as tough as this.
Fulham (4-4-2): E van der Sar 6 — S Finnan 6, A Melville 5 (sub: L Clark, 65min 6), A Goma 5, R Brevett 6 — S Legwinski 5, M Djetou 5, S Davis 5, P Wome 5 (sub: J Inamoto, 46; rep: C Willock, 51 6) — L Boa Morte 8, S Malbranque 4. Substitutes not used: M Taylor, B Goldbaek. Booked: Malbranque, Clark, Brevett. NEXT: Newcastle (a). FORM: LWLWDL
Birmingham City (4-4-2): N Vaesen 6 — O Tebily 6, D Purse 6, K Cunningham 7, J Kenna 6 — R Savage 6, A Cissé 6, J Kirovski 7 (sub: D Powell, 73), D Johnson 5 (sub: C Woodhouse, 75) — G Horsfield 5 (sub: B Hughes, 79), C Morrison 5. Substitutes not used: I Bennett, C Fagan. Booked: Johnson, Horsfield, Purse, Kirovski, Powell, Tebily, Cissé. Sent off: Purse. NEXT: Charlton (h). FORM: WLDWDL