Heskey opens account

Birmingham 1 Manchester City 0

Heskey showed the power in the air that persuaded Blues manager Steve Bruce to splash out £6.25 million (€9.27 million) to Liverpool in the summer. The result leaves Kevin Keegan’s side still looking for their opening win of the campaign and he will not have been impressed with their overall performance.

Birmingham did not show the same fluency as against Chelsea at the weekend but they were worthy victors.

It was their first win in 11 games since late March following a fade-out in the final quarter of last season.

Manchester City will be disappointed with their performance and their fans will heap pressure on Keegan unless results improve.

It might have been different had Nicolas Anelka not wasted a golden opportunity to open the scoring for the visitors after just two minutes.

England’s new cap Shaun Wright-Phillips made a surging run down the right past the challenge of Birmingham left-back Stan Lazaridis and cut an ideal ball back to Anelka.

But from six yards out the Frenchman completely miskicked and the low follow-up effort from Robbie Fowler was comfortably dealt with by keeper Maik Taylor.

After eight minutes, St Andrews erupted when Heskey hit the target for the first time since, coincidentally, scoring for Liverpool on the same ground during a 3-0 win in May.

Lazaridis provided a typically telling left-wing cross and Heskey held off the challenge of Sylvain Distin to send an unstoppable header past James.

Birmingham looked the better side and skipper Kenny Cunningham, back after missing the opening two games through suspension, was relieved to see a headed clearance from a Wright-Phillips cross rebound off Matthew Upson into Taylor’s arms.

Fowler should have put Manchester City level after 31 minutes when he found himself unmarked at the far post but he sent his header wide from Sun Jihai’s cross.

But Birmingham still looked more likely to grab the next goal and Forssell failed to make proper contact with a centre from Gronkjaer which flew back across goal.

John should have made no mistake after 69 minutes when he raced clear of the City defence but he failed to connect properly with his shot.

BIRMINGHAM: Taylor, Melchiot, Upson, Cunningham, Lazaridis (Clemence 59), Gronkjaer, Johnson, Izzet, Gray, Forssell (Tebily 79), Heskey (John 54).

MAN CITY: James, Jihai, Mills, Distin, Thatcher, Wright-Phillips, Bosvelt (Barton 79), Reyna, Sibierski (Sinclair 57), Fowler (Macken 79), Anelka.

Referee: P Dowd (Staffordshire).