Birmingham City 2 v Ipswich Town 2 - EFL Championship

Saturday 29th September 2018

SkyBet EFL Championship

at St. Andrew's Stadium

Birmingham City (0) 2
Lukas Jutkiewicz 48, 68

Ipswich Town (2) 2
Jon Nolan 26
Matt Pennington 41

Admission £20. Programme £3
Attendance 21,612 (inc. 1,096 away)

Birmingham City:

Lee Camp, Maxime Colin, Harlee Dean, Michael Morrison, Kristian Pedersen, Jota, Gary Gardner (Maikel Kieftenbeld HT), Charlie Lakin (Connor Mahoney 64), Jacques Maghoma, Lukas Jutkiewicz, Che Adams.

Unused Subs - Marc Roberts, Wes Harding, Viv Solomon-Otabor, Omar Bogle, Connal Trueman.

Ipswich Town:

Dean Gerken, Matthew Pennington, Toto Nsiala, Luke Chambers, Jonas Knudsen; Cole Skuse, Trevoh Chalobah, Gwion Edwards (Janoi Donacien 89), Jon Nolan, Grant Ward (Freddie Sears 81); Kayden Jackson.

Unused subs - Flynn Downes, Andre Dozzell, Tayo Edun, Jordan Graham, Bartosz Bialkowski.

Following their 'coupon busting' win at Leeds United last weekend, Blues went into this afternoon's game from a nosebleeds and dizzy spells inducing, giddy heights position of seventeenth in the Championship, peering down a whole six places at today's visitors: 'win-less' Ipswich Town, who were perched uncomfortably, just above the division's bottom club: Preston North End, by virtue of goal difference alone. It was almost inevitable, given the impressive result against the previous unbeaten league leaders, at the imposing cauldron of Elland Road, that today's game... well the first half at least, would see Birmingham perform a complete 'about face', that prompted their own manager to comment, that he would've made eleven substitutions at half time if he'd been allowed to.

But, come full time, after a vastly improved second half performance by the home side, a point apiece saw both teams move up a place in the table, which also meant that, if there is any truth at all, in any of the hype, hot air and nonsense that you hear emanating from the deluded and self aggrandising fan base of another West Midlands club, that Blues must now only be one place away from seriously challenging for promotion to the Premier League (which, of course, they're not really), because Garry

Monk's side are now breathing down the necks and advancing on the fifteenth placed team, going by the name of Aston Villa, who are apparently a big club who are too good for the Championship... and the dish ran away with the spoon.
The impressive comeback after the interval, meant that Blues still remain unbeaten at home this season, though that said, they have yet to win a game at St. Andrew's either.

Birmingham's first half showing, or 'no showing', to be more to the point, was, following on from last weekends focused and hard working performances in West Yorkshire, a massive case of after the Lord Mayor's Show. 

Ipswich for their part weren't anything particularly special as they eased their way into a two goal lead, but they didn't really need to be.

The guitar solo halfway through Mr Blue Sky can get you like that.
"Hey you with the pretty face... welcome to the human race"

Testing ones mettle against the better teams in the division, is all well and good, but keeping up the ante against run of the mill opponents is just as important. These are the bread and butter games upon which the final points total for the season are built.

Maybe Leeds were complacent and had underestimated Blues last weekend. I think the same allegation could certainly be levelled at some of Monk's players this afternoon during the first forty five minutes... and no team should ever take any opposition, or a result against them, for granted in this league. I'm quite sure that he would have told them as much during his interval team talk too.

The home side started the first half well enough and inside the opening five minutes, Ipswich were lucky to survive a three pronged Blues attack from Lukas Jutkiewicz's header back across the face of goal from Jota's flag kick, to where Che Adams and Michael Morrison both had shots blocked, before the ball fell to Gary Gardner whose curling half volley glanced the outside of the woodwork.

But as Paul Hurst's visitors just about kept their goal protected, while Birmingham became frustrated as passes began to go astray while they looked for other solutions to unlock the Suffolk side... the 'Tractor Boys' made a smash and grab raid forward, with Matthew Pennington hoisting the ball forward into the path of Kayden Jackson, who darted forward on the right before finding Jon Nolan with a cross, who floated a chip come shot over Lee Camp and into the far corner.

It looked for all the world as though Michael Morrison had pulled things level with a looping header from a Jota set piece, but the match officials weren't convinced that the whole of the ball had crossed the line before Jonas Knudsen made a last ditch clearance and the visitors had a narrow escape.
The referee, John Brooks, seemed oblivious to (or very lenient towards) the close marking and manhandling that Adams was receiving in and around the 'Town' area, with Luke Chambers in particular, clinging to him like one of those rogue pubic hairs that strays under your foreskin and irritates the life out of you, when you're in polite company and can do nothing about it... or something like that.

Ipswich doubled their lead shortly before the break, when Grant Ward’s left wing corner kick, should have been cleared, but Pennington got a touch instead, or the ball ricocheted off of his legs and found it's way into the corner of the net.
Blues (and their supporters) were stunned, but nowhere near as much as the Ipswich fans were, whose celebrations were a mixture of cheerful applause and wide-eyed bewilderment in equal parts.
While the players trooped off the pitch, somebody commented: "Well, now we know how the Leeds fans felt at half time last week!"
HT: City 0 v Town 2
Gary Gardner was substituted at half time, due to a head injury, with Maikel Kieftenbeld coming on in his place. As impact subs go, he certainly, err... made an impact.

With many of the crowd still returning to their seats at the start of the second half, the former Shewsbury Town player Nolan almost put the visitors three goals in front when he flashed a free kick inches past the post.

It was time for Blues to get hold of this game by the scruff of the neck and stop buggering about, and with the home crowd cranking up the volume, that is exactly what they did.

'Cometh the hour' (well, the forty eighth minute of it) 'Cometh the man', step forward Lukas Jutkiewicz.
Jota gave 'the Juke', the key to Ipswich's back door three minutes after the restart, threading the ball through their lock-tight defence for him to run onto, before picking his moment and curling a well placed shot around Dean Gerken, the 'Town' goalkeeper, to sent the home crowd in raptures of raucous, unrestrained joy and relief, in equal parts. 

Gerken pulled off a decent stop to deny Jutkiewicz his second goal, as Blues increased the tempo and created thirteen second half chances.

Young Charlie Lakin, who  is already making a great impression in the middle of the park, early in his Blues career, was replaced by Connor Mahoney, yet another 'impact sub', whose willingness to run at the opposition defence and take them on, was a prominent feature of the twenty six minutes he spent on the pitch this afternoon.

Almost straight after his introduction he delivered a dipping cross to Jutkiewicz, who's looping header crashed off of the top of the crossbar.

Knudsen sprinted from the Ipswich area to cut out Mahoney's run forward on the right flank and fouled Blues number seven. Jota took the resulting free kick into the six yard box and as bodies piled in, Gerken punched Jota's delivery into the air, an orange shirted defender made a goal-line clearance and there was a loud call for a "handball!", before Jutkiewicz hit a crisp sot on the turn that bulged the top corner of the visitors net.

Jutkiewicz has put in a shift and a half in all season, working his nuts off to provide numerous chances for his teammates, but today he deservedly took centre stage, at the end of a week in which his boss had hailed him as the unsung hero of the 2018-19 campaign so far.

The home side were rampant now and although it looked almost inevitable that their second three point haul of the season of the season was on the cards, but Ipswich survived their 'squeaky bum time' finale to the game, despite being reduced to ten men in the closing stages when Pennington was dismissed for a second yellow card offence.

Dean, Jota and Mahoney all went close to finding the net a third time for Blues, while Kristian Pedersen made a last ditch tackle to deny Nolan from stealing the points for Ipswich.

FT: Birmingham City 2 v Ipswich Town 2

And the moral of this story is: you win some, you lose some and you draw even more.

Birmingham travel to Harlee Dean and Jota's former club, play off contenders Brentford, on Tuesday night, before returning to St. Andrew's where they will face Rotherham United next weekend, who are currently level with Blues on points in the Championship, but two places below Garry Monk's side on goal difference. While Ipswich Town now have two tricky league fixtures coming up, against Middlesbrough at Portman Road in midweek, before they make the 275 mile east to west trek to take on Swansea at the Liberty Stadium on Saturday.

The Gil Merrick Stand/Railway End. St. Andrew's. Birmingham. B9.