Thanks to Pepe Reina we were able to walk away with a point from St. Andrews this afternoon, the Reds keeper came up big twice to deny Brum three points.
Birmingham started quite strong in the first half and looked very menacing. In the 22nd minute Cameron Jerome found some space between Martin Skrtel and Paul Konchesky but his excellent header was met by a world class save from Pepe Reina. A little later Nando was brought down in box in what should have been a penalty. The Blues kept pressing and in the 37th minute another great header (this time by Craig Gardner) was saved brilliantly by Reina.
We were better in the second half however we still lacked any good chances to get excited about. Both Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard had an off day. Christian Poulsen and Lucas Leiva also had a poor game, however Raul Meireles looked quite sharp coming off the bench in the 76th minute. Paul Konchesky had a solid performance in the second half, but unfortunately had to be substituted by Daniel Agger in the 78th minute due to an injury.
Birmingham: Foster, Carr, Johnson, Dann, Ridgewell, Larsson, Ferguson, Bowyer, Gardner, McFadden, Jerome
Subs: Taylor, Murphy, Derbyshire, Michel, Fahey, Zigic, Jiranek
Liverpool: Reina, Johnson, Carragher, Skrtel, Konchesky, Maxi, Poulsen, Lucas, Gerrard, Jovanovic, Torres
Subs: Jones, Meireles, Agger, Pacheco, Kyrgiakos, Babel, Ngog
Referee: Mark Halsey (Lancashire)
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THE GOOD: World class performance by Pepe Reina, he brushed off his mid-week howler against Argentina and had a couple of splendid saves to deny Birmingham the three points. Brum haven’t been beaten at St. Andrews in over a year so on paper the result does not look that bad.
THE BAD: Poor performance by Christian Poulsen and Lucas Leiva in the middle of the park.
THE UGLY: Paul Konchesky limping off in the 78th minute after a good 2nd half performance, hopefully it is nothing serious.