Lacklustre Reds held by Blues

Birmingham produced a battling performance to frustrate a below-par Liverpool and earn a deserved goalless draw at Anfield.

Liverpool drop points to Birmingham

Birmingham produced a battling performance to frustrate a below-par Liverpool and earn a deserved goalless draw at Anfield. The Premier League new boys defended superbly in a performance which Blues boss Steve Bruce would have been proud of in his hey-day. Liverpool struggled to create any clear goalscoring chances as they put in another disappointing display following their 1-1 draw with Porto in midweek. The draw was Liverpool's third successive draw and sees them drop further behind early leaders Arsenal in the table. The Midlanders were clearly not going to be letting themselves suffer a six-goal thrashing like Derby did recently, and set out to suffocate the life from Liverpool's game. Steve Bruce's side more than achieved their aim and fully deserved the point. Liam Ridgewell and Johan Djourou were outstanding at the back and Rafa Benitez has still to register a league win over Bruce's men after five attempts. Ryan Babel combined to play Riise in on the left on five minutes, but his fierce low cross was too far ahead of Voronin.

Missed chances

Babel then cut in from the left and found Dirk Kuyt - but the striker was forced into a hurried shot wide. Birmingham's system, though, was disrupted on 16 minutes by what looked a bad injury to Borja Oubina on his full debut for the Midlanders as the midfielder was carried off and replaced by Gary McSheffrey. Jermaine Pennant produced a 25-yard effort which was turned over the bar by Maik Taylor, before Jose Reina made his only contribution to the first half when Wilson Palacios shot from 25 yards. Liverpool continued to toil after the break, and Jamie Carragher saw an 18-yard effort deflected just over. From Pennant's corner, Gerrard stabbed in a near post effort which Mehdi Nafti cleared off the line. Andrei Voronin was next to go close, stumbling as he picked up a through-ball, but still able to fire in a low shot that Taylor saved well to his left. Liverpool sent on Fernando Torres for Babel on the hour, before Olivier Kapo forced Reina into a save with a shot from 30 yards.

Torres introduced

Peter Crouch finally got on after 74 minutes to add some aerial threat, replacing Voronin - and two minutes later Torres produced an overhead kick which flashed inches over from Pennant's corner. Steve Finnan replaced the injured Pennant with three minutes left as the winger looking to have picked up a hamstring problem. Birmingham held on comfortably in the end to pick up a deserved point as Liverpool drew for the third successive game.

Liverpool	Team Statistics	Birmingham City
0	Goals	0
0	1st Half Goals	0
3	Shots on Target	1
14	Shots off Target	3
5	Blocked Shots	1
11	Corners	2
5	Fouls	11
5	Offsides	3
0	Yellow Cards	2
0	Red Cards	0
81.9	Passing Success	74.1
27	Tackles	30
74.1	Tackles Success	43.3
71.5	Possession	28.5
56.8	Territorial Advantage	43.2