Bruce mystified by Dublin reaction

Birmingham boss Steve Bruce insisted Dion Dublin had not been provoked by a racist remark before headbutting Robbie Savage in tonight’s stormy 2-0 win over Aston Villa at Villa Park.

Dublin was waiting to find out his punishment for a reckless tackle from behind on Savage when he suddenly became incensed and headbutted the Wales international leaving referee Mark Halsey with no choice but to send him off.

Dublin had to be restrained and led off the pitch by Villa coach Stuart Gray as he looked to carry on his run-in with Savage after receiving his red card and a touchline microphone picked up him muttering “he’s (Savage) a cheat” before he made his way down the tunnel.

But Bruce moved swiftly to rule out any suggestion that Dublin might have been on the receiving end of a racist taunt.

“I’ve been in the dressing room and the first thing I asked was that I hoped there was no racist element involved and they (the players) said there wasn’t. The Aston Villa coaching staff said there wasn’t too,” he told Sky Sports 1.

Bruce admitted he was astonished that Dublin had snapped so spectacularly.

“I’m really surprised at Dion. I’ve never seen him do anything like that in his career and I suspect he may wake up in the morning and I think he’s been silly.

“Towards the end there was some serious provocation going on and some of the things going on were getting out of hand and silly.

“But I’m delighted with the discipline of my players. I didn’t see any rash challenges from them.

“To come here and do the double on them is a great achievement. We wanted to pick up something and we’re delighted that we’re six points ahead of Bolton.”

Aston Villa manager Graham Taylor insisted he was not prepared to discuss the match in public.

He said: “On this occasion I am not prepared to be answering any questions - all of my talking will be done in the dressing room.

“It’s just got to be. The talking that takes place now will take place in the dressing room.”

Geoff Horsfield admitted he feared for his own safety after a Villa fan invaded the pitch and confronted Birmingham players.

Horsfield made the game safe with City’s second after Stan Lazaridis had opened the scoring, although a brace of red cards for Villa and outbreaks of crowd trouble took the shine off their win.

Joey Gudjonsson saw red after Lazaridis’ opener for a two-footed lunge on Matthew Upson.

That red card prompted some violence among fans with one supporter running on to the pitch to confront Savage – with Horsfield admitting he was frightened by the sight.

He said: “It looked bad from the sideline, people coming on the pitch and it’s going to affect us when people run at you. You just wonder what they’ve got in their hands or what they can do.”

Man-of-the-match Jeff Kenna expects Dublin to regret his actions.

He said: “It happens in the heat of the game and he’ll regret that. It probably changed the game.

“Tempers are going and him and Robbie had a little handbags at 10 paces, something was said and he lost his rag.”