Manchester City were well below par today in their match against Birmingham City at the St.Andrew’s Stadium and if not for Shay Given, they would have gone home with a defeat. Shay Given was absolutely brilliant and his penalty save earned them a point which they actually did not deserve. The Manchester City players would have liked to perform much better and produced a win to celebrate the the manager Mark Hughes’ 46th birthday. This is City’s 4th consecutive draw in the Premier League. Adebayor missed out on injury and Santa Cruz made the starting line-up.

The home side started off positively and in the ninth minute, Benitez came close to giving them the lead. His low 20 yard drive took a deflection off Vincent Kompany and crashed against Given’s left-hand post. Benitez caused plenty of early problems, and Given made an excellent block on the edge of his box to deny him the goal.City tried to fight back with Wright-Phillips driving the ball in and Maik Taylor was not able to cling on to the ball but Stephen Carr put the ball away out of danger. Birmingham looked the more dangerous, and Given was forced to tip over a swerving McFadden drive after being found in space by Benitez. Ferguson became the first player to be yellow-carded after 27 minutes, when blocking off a touchline run from Craig Bellamy. Taylor blocked a point-blank-range effort from Roque Santa Cruz after good play by Carlos Tevez and Wright-Phillips down the right flank.

Birmingham had a golden opportunity to take the lead after 56 minutes when De Jong clumsily handled the ball in an aerial challenge with Larsson and conceded a penalty but Given dived and punched the ball away to deny an opening goal. Ireland replaced Santa Cruz and Petrov came in for De Jong but the manager could do nothing more and the game ended in another draw for City. They would have to lift themselves considerably if they are to stay in the race to finish in the top four.

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