Birmingham City vs Middlesbrough. Sky Bet Championship.
St. Andrew's StadiumAttendance15,852.
Report and free match highlights from the Sky Bet Championship clash between Birmingham and Middlesbrough at St Andrew's as Aaron Connolly and Folarin Balogun score to get Boro's play-off bid back on track
Tuesday 15 March 2022 23:29, UK
Middlesbrough climbed to sixth in the Championship with a 2-0 win over Birmingham at St Andrew's to earn their first league victory away from home in 2022.
Aaron Connolly's goal following good play between Folarin Balogun and Anfernee Dijksteel put Boro in front after 23 minutes.
Despite Paddy McNair's second-half penalty miss, Balogun extended the visitors' lead and returned Middlesbrough to winning ways after failing to win in their previous two.
Blues' misery was compounded when Kristian Pedersen was shown a second yellow card in the final minutes.
Birmingham started brightly with Onel Hernandez, who spent the first half of the season on loan at Boro, at the centre of their attacks in the opening stages.
In his first start for the Blues since his January loan move from Brighton, Taylor Richards was unlucky not to score when his shot was blocked by Jonny Howson before Lukas Jutkiewicz could not on to latch onto Hernandez's cross moments later.
After McNair blazed over from the edge of the penalty area, Chris Wilder's side went ahead when Neil Etheridge's save from Aaron Connolly rebounded off teenager Nico Gordon.
A neat interchange between Balogun and Dijksteel cut the Birmingham defence in half before Gordon was helpless in the ball hitting the back of the net.
Boro were denied a second in first-half injury time when the impressive Balogun was judged to be offside after he tucked the ball past Etheridge.
Four minutes into the second half and the play-off chasing side squandered the chance to double their advantage when Richards brought down Isaiah Jones in the penalty area.
Etheridge got down well and pushed the ball against the post to deny McNair of his first goal of the season.
Middlesbrough managed to add breathing room between themselves and Birmingham shortly after the hour mark when Balogun topped off a quality striker's performance with a curler past Etheridge.
Matt Crooks' dangerous run into the hosts' area was not dealt with and the Arsenal loanee received the ball from Marcus Tavernier before unleashing a spectacular strike for his second goal in three games.
Clear-cut chances were hard to come by for Birmingham, who look safe from yet another relegation battle with a 13-point gap between them and the bottom three, with Gary Gardner hitting a strike wide of goal and Marc Roberts unable to hit the target from close range.
Birmingham's poor evening was complete when Pedersen was sent off for a second bookable offence in the 87th minute.
The defeat means Birmingham have now lost eight home games this season and leaves Lee Bowyer's side with only three victories in 19 games.
Birmingham's Lee Bowyer: "Tonight wasn't good enough, in lots of ways. I'm the person in charge and I take full responsibility for that. But sometimes your players have to look at themselves. We lost every battle, all over the pitch, so that hurts me a lot. Just accepting defeats, rolling over and pulling out of tackles, that's not what this football club's about. I didn't see enough passion."
"You're not in a relegation fight in the past four years unless you have performances like that. It shocks me because I don't accept it. But that's the running thing here and that's what we need to change. In the summer, people will have to move on."
Middlesbrough's Chris Wilder: "It was important. We stressed to the players that we needed it. We were terribly disappointed with what happened at Bramall Lane. The reaction over the two away games has been excellent. It was important tonight that we got a win," Wilder continued. "Our reaction to the disallowed goal and the missed penalty was excellent. But the quality of the second goal put us in the ascendancy and we were pretty comfortable after that."
"It wasn't a lack of belief or quality. If we're going to be in the shout for the top six then we've got to pick up points away from home and four points from six is a good effort."
