Pennant boosts Birmingham’s survival hopes

Birmingham City 2 Wigan Athletic 0

A home win over Wigan was not enough to ease the Midlands outfit out of the bottom three but it did move them to within three points of safety and raise hope that top flight status can be preserved.

First-half efforts from Jermaine Pennant and Mario Melchiot handed Birmingham three precious and deserved points against a below-par Latics and sent the St Andrews club into 2006 in bullish mood.