John to the rescue for Birmingham with spectacular injury-time equaliser

STERN JOHN snatched a dramatic injury-time equaliser to rescue a point for Birmingham and complete a spectacular comeback at Villa Park yesterday.

Aston Villa 2 Birmingham 2

Aston Villa looked set to celebrate their first Premiership victory over the Blues after cruising into a two-goal lead through Darius Vassell and Thomas Hitzlsperger.

For the best part of an hour the visitors were outplayed and, more surprisingly, outfought by David O'Leary's team. But the introduction of Clinton Morrison and David Dunn while Villa lost the influential Gareth Barry through injury changed the course of the game.

Birmingham manager Steve Bruce saluted super-sub John after scoring that dramatic injury-time equaliser. John enabled the Blues to recover from a 2-0 deficit by netting in the fourth minute of time added on by referee Jeff Winter.

It means City are unbeaten in four meetings with Villa since they returned to the Barclaycard Premiership 18 months ago.

Bruce said: "I'm delighted for Stern. I will never forget the fact that he almost single-handedly got us into the Premiership.

"It was his eighth goals in 15 games when we snapped him up from Nottingham Forest which made all the difference that season two years ago.

"He keeps reminding you every now and again of his ability and he's great to have around the place. I'm delighted for him, although I must admit I thought he had shanked his shot and missed the opportunity."

Bruce gave his players a half-time rollicking after being totally outplayed in the opening 45 minutes.

Those goals from Vassell and Hitzlsperger looked to have settled the outcome before Mikael Forssell pulled one back to set the scene for John's late heroics.

Bruce said: "A few words were said at half-time and I felt in the first-half only three players performed Forssell, Kenny Cunningham and Maik Taylor.

"But they came out for the second-half and got themselves back into the game and it's a great point for us in the end."

Villa manager David O'Leary was left to rue a series of missed first-half opportunities and Vassell should have grabbed a hat-trick in that period.

O'Leary said: "It's a game we should have won, and it's a game we should have won well. Good luck to Birmingham for fighting back but we had loads of chances to wrap up the three points.

"We did not play in the last half-hour. Too many of our players didn't perform in that period and that brought them back into the game.

"It also didn't help us that we lost two influential players in Ronny Johnsen and Gareth Barry through injury," said O'Leary.

ASTON VILLA: Sorensen, De la Cruz, Mellberg, Johnsen (Dublin 52), Samuel, Hendrie (Luke Moore 81), Solano, Hitzlsperger, Barry (Whittingham 56), Vassell, Angel.

BIRMINGHAM: Maik Taylor, Tebily, Cunningham, Purse, Kenna (John 83), Johnson, Clemence (Morrison 55), Savage, Hughes, Dugarry (Dunn 55), Forssell.

Referee: J Winter (Cleveland).