Birmingham City 1 v Sheffield Wednesday 0 - EFL Championship

Wednesday 27th September 2017
SkyBet EFL Championship
at St. Andrew's
Birmingham City (0) 1
Isaac Vassell 76
Sheffield Wednesday (0) 0
Attendance 20,365 (inc. 2,444 away fans)

Birmingham City:
Kuszczak; Nsue, Morrison, Dean, Colin; Davis, Gardner (Roberts 89), Ndoye; Maghoma, Jutkiewicz (Vassell 62), Boga (Gallagher 83).
Unused subs - Grounds, Gleeson, Cotterill, Trueman.
Sheffield Wednesday:
Sheffield Wednesday: Wildsmith; Hunt, van Aken, Lees, Fox (Joao 78); Bannon, Butterfield, Lee; Reach, Fletcher (Rhodes 62), Hooper.
Unused subs - Jones, Palmer, Wallace, Pudil, Dawson

Birmingham City won their first game tonight, since they overcame Bristol City 2-1 back on the 12th August 2017.
Craig Gardner was unlucky to see his curling free kick fly past the wrong side of the upright, but from their next attack moments later, Isaac Vassell's 76th minute neatly taken close range finish from Jacques Maghoma's angled pass (which was his first goal for Blues since he moved to St. Andrew's from Luton Town for £1.5 million in the Summer), settled this tight game on a wet Wednesday night, in favour of caretaker manager Lee Carsley's side, following their 1-1 draw at Derby County at the weekend.

 Carlos Carvalhal, believes that Gary Hooper had a perfectly good goal disallowed, when his strike was ruled out for offside. The Sheffield Wednesday manager also thinks that the moon is made of cream cheese, the Smurfs are real and the tooth fairy leaves scrunched up £20 notes under his pillow. He also travels to work on a space hopper.
Hooper was clearly offside and the closest that the Owls went to actually scoring was when Tomasz Kuszczak thwarted Adam Reach, who tested Blues Polish international (at U16, U18, U21 and first team level) goalkeeper.

The hosts really should have scored around the hour mark, when Jeremie Boga slipped a pass through to Cheikh Ndoye who shot over the bar. But that is easy for me to say, sat up at the back of the Kop in my big warm coat as the players had to adapt to conditions, that suggest we have bypassed Autumn this year and gone straight into Winter.
Late on, Lucas Joao had a great chance to force a draw but Kuszczak turned his header round the upright.
On the hike back up to New Street station, the Wednesday fans who were going to be on the same train out of the second city as me, got wind of the fact that their rivals: Sheffield United had beaten Wolves 2-0 to move into second place in the table, after winning 4-2 at Hillsborough on Sunday.

Which made for a subdued atmosphere all the way back to Chesterfield, where I had (bravely if a little foolhardily) left my car parked, for the second leg of my journey home.
FT: Birmingham City 1 v Sheffield Wednesday 0
A win is a win and lord knows Birmingham City really, really needed one.
Following tonight's results, Blues are still in the bottom three,but are now withing tagging distance of the other struggling sides, while (apparent) promotion hopefuls Wednesday slid to fourteenth in the table, five points ahead of Birmingham and eight behind their steel city rivals.