Birmingham's strategy made a virtue of the much criticised Nikola Zigic's aerial strength and their midfield five worked tirelessly to cover his immobility by denying Arsenal space in their half by a clever deployment of pressing whenever the Gunners broke into their half.
An entertaining first period finished all square after Birmingham's great graft had given them an early ascendancy. Their midfield's hustling and sensible use of Zigic, telling him to do what he does best and flick the ball on with his head from direct diagonal balls played from both wings, gave Arsenal plenty to ponder at half-time.
Birmingham did not get the penalty they deserved when Wojciech Szczesny upended Lee Bowyer but they were not dispirited and kept plugging deep balls into Zigic and Bowyer anticipated his flicks with early movement and well-timed runs. Craig Gardner also moved intelligently and Sebastien Larsson and Keith Fahey timed their supporting runs perfectly to feed on Zigic's knockdowns.
As Arsenal's passing improved Birmingham retreated in their 4-5-1 formation and left the Serb upfield as a spectator, not wanting him to expend any energy fruitlessly but rather telling him to focus on maximising his heading strength.
Alex McLeish had drilled his forces thoughtfully and they knew exactly when to trigger the group pressing which restricted Arsenal's goal attempts in the first period. The five midfielders dropped to halfway as a group and then hunted Arsenal's ball carriers down as a pack with terrific team spirit.
With Arsenal forced to shoot from distance, Ben Foster excelled, superbly parrying efforts. Birmingham battled bravely under pressure as Roger Johnson and Martin Jiranek kept their positional discipline and Bowyer and Barry Ferguson suffered heavy challenges. When the end of the road was in sight Zigic was substituted as Arsenal began to look the fresher of the teams and were threatening to take the game.
The pace of the substitutes Obafemi Martins and Cameron Jerome became important as Birmingham narrowed the gap between the forwards and midfielders to maintain concerted attacking phases.
It was sad that an awful mix-up decided the game. All the pundits will talk of Arsenal's failure to purchase a goalkeeper and centre-back but fate was cruel on them. They conceded the first goal with too many defenders obscuring Szczesny and Johan Djourou's lack of concentration allowed Zigic to score. Robin van Persie's equaliser was a piece of magical timing and technique.
The winner came from a mistake but Birmingham earned their victory through terrific teamwork and astute deployment of Zigic's strengths.
Source: David Pleat, The Guardian on 27 Feb 11
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