Birmingham City 0-0 Stoke City: Blues, Potters remain unbeaten after stalemate
Birmingham and Stoke maintained their unbeaten start to the season as they played a goalless draw at St Andrew’s.
Steven Fletcher forced an early save from Blues goalkeeper Matija Sarkic, but the hosts responded well and created the best chances.
Skipper Harlee Dean headed just past the post for Marc Roberts’ long throw, and Scott Hogan shot a few inches wide after jumping on Leo Ostigard’s weak head.
Gary Gardner pushed the ball into the net late after Dean unleashed another long throw from Roberts, but the effort was ruled out for offside.
Both teams entered the game after a positive first week of the season, winning their first league games and advancing into the EFL Cup.
Birmingham welcomed fans to St Andrew’s for a Championship match for the first time since last March, but numbers have remained limited, with two closed stands for repairs.
Stoke, who hasn’t won at Birmingham in 13 visits since October 1988, started off the best, but the hosts have gradually taken matters into their own hands.
Moments after his near-crash in the first half, Hogan was scored on goal by Ivan Sunjic’s through ball but sliced a shot to the corner flag.
A tight second half fell short of an entertaining first half as the Blues failed to score a goal on target, although Gardner was not deprived of a spectacular late winner as by the flag of an assistant referee.
Stoke had found the net five times in his first two games, but also failed to disturb Sarkic after the break as Birmingham scored their third straight clean sheet.
Birmingham head coach Lee Bowyer told BBC WM 95.6:
“Both teams worked extremely hard, especially out of possession, and I felt like we both called off each other.
“I think on clear occasions we got ahead of him, but unfortunately for us we failed to seize those chances.
“It wasn’t pretty to watch, but we have another clean sheet against a good Stoke side, which is something positive for me. Overall I think a point was right.”
Stoke boss Michael O’Neill:
“We didn’t do enough to win the game. To be honest, I didn’t feel like we were ever going to lose it.
“We handled what we knew we were going to handle, which was a lot of long throws and balls into the box. We handled that really well.
“We can’t have 30 seconds for each throw-in, that’s where the time flies. Then we had three minutes at the end. It’s just the nature of the game and there are a lot of games in it. the championship that end like this.
“If you want to come out of the league you have to aspire to be a better team than that and that’s obviously what we’re trying to do.”
Queues
Birmingham
Training 4-1-2-1-2
- 13Sarkic
- 2Colin
- 4Roberts
- 12Dean
- 3Pedersen
- 34Sunjic
- 6Woods
- 11Bela
- 20Gardner
- 9HoganBooked at 49 minutesReplaced byAnekeTo 66 ‘minutes
- tenJutkiewiczReplaced byLekoTo 71 ‘minutes
Substitutes
- 5Friend
- 14Leko
- 15Aneke
- 17Sanchez
- 18Mcgree
- 23Familia-Castillo
- 27True man
Feed
Training 5-3-2
- 12Bursik
- 2Black-smith
- 19Østigard
- 36Souttar
- 16Wilmot
- 14Tymon
- 25PowellBooked at 67 minutes
- 4Allen
- 7ClucasBooked at 57 minutes
- 22SurridgeReplaced byBrownTo 76 ‘minutes
- 9FletcherReplaced byThompsonTo 90 + 2 ‘minutes
Substitutes
- 1Davies
- 3Fox
- 6Bath
- 11Valiant
- 15Thompson
- 18Brown
- 23Ince
- Arbitrator:
- Gavin district
- Presence:
- 10 189
Live Text
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Match Ends, Birmingham City 0, Stoke City 0.
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Second Half ends, Birmingham City 0, Stoke City 0.
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Substitution, Stoke City. Jordan Thompson replaces Steven Fletcher.
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Offside, Birmingham City. Harlee Dean tries a through ball, but Gary Gardner is caught offside.
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Attempt blocked. Sam Clucas (Stoke City) right footed shot from outside the box misses to the left. Assisted by Steven Fletcher.
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Corner, Birmingham City. Licensed by Léo Østigard.
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Attempt blocked. Jérémie Bela (Birmingham City) left footed shot from the left side of the box misses to the left. Assisted by Jonathan Leko.
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Corner, Stoke City. Licensed by Maxime Colin.
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Free kick wonJacob Brown (Stoke City) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
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Foul by Kristian Pedersen (Birmingham City).
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Failed attempt. Jérémie Bela (Birmingham City) right footed shot from the left side of the box misses to the left. Passed by Jonathan Leko from a center.
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Failed attempt. Chuks Aneke (Birmingham City) right footed shot from the right side of the box misses to the left. Assisted by Matija Sarkic.
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Offside, Stoke City. Ben Wilmot tries a through ball, but Sam Clucas is caught offside.
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Substitution, Stoke City. Jacob Brown replaces Sam Surridge.
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Corner, Stoke City. Licensed by Marc Roberts.
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Substitution, Birmingham City. Jonathan Leko replaces Lukas Jutkiewicz.
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Attempt saved. Steven Fletcher (Stoke City) header from the center of the box is saved in the top left corner. Assisted by Josh Tymon from a center.
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Nick Powell (Stoke City) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
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Foul by Nick Powell (Stoke City).
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free kick won Gary Gardner (Birmingham City) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
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