Birmingham City 2 - Blackburn Rovers 1

Pedersen masters art of perfect penalty miss

Points Awards

• Yellow Card (1): M. Diouf
• Yellow Card (1): R. Nelsen
• Yellow Card (1): N. Žigić
• Yellow Card (1): S. N'Zonzi
• Losing Team (1 each): C. Samba, G. Givet, R. Nelsen, B. Emerton, M. Pedersen, S. N'Zonzi, E. Diouf, M. Olsson, N. Kalinić, D. Hoilett, M. Salgado, P. Jones, M. Diouf, and P. Robinson
• Missed penalty (3): M. Pedersen
• Assist (1): M. Salgado
• Assist (1): C. Samba
• Assist (1): R. Nelsen
• Assist (1): P. Robinson
• Penalty Gift (3): N. Žigić
• Assist (1): S. Dann
• Disappointing player (3): M. Pedersen
• Yellow Card (1): S. Larsson

When this battle of last year’s mid-table, identical-points teams kicked off, we had three questions. First, has their limited close season transfer activity given one team any kind of edge over the other? Second, would the Premiership’s youngest ever referee, 25 year-old Michael Oliver, decide to make his mark in a big way? Third, would Birmingham’s El-Hadji Diouf gob on anyone?

By the 25 minute mark, it wasn’t looking good. In fact, our Expert Panellists were spending more time on www.thesaurus.com looking up synonyms for boring (“tedious,” “dull,” “dire”, “is this sharp enough to cut my wrists?”) than on watching the game.

But things were soon to liven up. Early in the second half Oliver awarded Blackburn a penalty after Nikola Zigic earned a point for a bear hug on Christopher Samba – and when that didn’t stop him, two more for blatant shirt pulling. Morten Ganst Pedersen continued the F**kwit scoring when his well-struck penalty-kick was brilliantly pushed onto the bar by Birmingham keeper Ben Foster. We admit to some doubts as to whether Pederson was truly following the spirit of Fantasy F**kwit when he stepped up to the spot – compared to, say, Carlton Cole’s brilliantly pisspoor penalty at Upton Park the same day – but he gets the benefit of the doubt and three points.

The save fired up the home crowd for all of three minutes, until Steven Nzonzi headed home for Blackburn. Birmingham’s Scott Dann, last spotted consulting an Ordnance Survey map as he trailed five feet behind the goalscorer, picked up one point for an assist.

But it was Blackburn who would ultimately triumph in the F**kwit Index. Their defence was all over the place for Birmingham’s equaliser, with Michel Salgado picking up an assist for Craig Gardner’s goal in the 57th minute.

Christopher Samba and Ryan Nelsen then picked up points for an assist after failing to shut down Gardner, who surged forward and rattled a shot past Paul Robinson from 30 yards out. True, the ball might have bounced awkwardly right in front of him, but Robinson also gets a point because, well, you just shouldn’t get beaten from that far out.

A flurry of almost legitimately exciting football ensued — but it’s not our job to comment on that. By the end of the match, Blackburn’s Nzonzi, Mame Diouf, and Ryan Nelsen were in the book with yellows; special congratulations to Nzonzi, who didn’t actually deserve his yellow for crashing into Foster in pursuit of a second goal, but gets on the scoresheet anyway. For Birmingham, Sebastian Larsson and Zigic went in the book, while Pedersen’s critical penalty miss marked him out as the most disappointing player.
By Marie James

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