view photoManchester City's Premier League challenge continued along its spluttering, unconvincing path when they were held to a goalless draw at Birmingham City on Sunday, their fourth successive league draw.
Big-spending City remain a disjointed side and draws against Aston Villa, Wigan Athletic, Fulham and struggling Birmingham, who missed a penalty and were the more dangerous side throughout, showed how much work manager Mark Hughes still has to do.
City's point moved them up to fourth place on 19, eight behind leaders Chelsea, who hammered Bolton Wanderers 4-0 on Saturday.
Champions Manchester United are second on 25 after beating Blackburn Rovers 2-0, with Arsenal third on 22 following their 3-0 victory over Tottenham Hotspur who are fifth on 19.
Liverpool, who had two players sent off in a 3-1 defeat at Fulham, and Villa, who drew 1-1 at Everton, both have 18. Birmingham climbed to 14th on 11 points.
LOWEST SCORERS
Birmingham, the lowest scorers in the Premier League with just eight goals from their first 10 games, had the best of the first half with Shay Given forced to make several good saves as Christian Benitez looked particularly dangerous.
They should have taken the lead 10 minutes after halftime when Nigel de Jong handled in the box but Given came to the rescue again when he saved James McFadden's penalty.
City were without Emmanuel Adebayor with an ankle injury and the starting strike duo of Roque Santa Cruz and Carlos Tevez struggled to make any impact.
Craig Bellamy tried manfully to get things moving and City had plenty of possession and half-chances but Birmingham goalkeeper Maik Taylor was barely tested.
Birmingham had Barry Ferguson sent off in stoppage time to become the ninth red card victim from the weekend's 10 league games.
(Editing by Ed Osmond)
Comment 1 - 7 of 7
every team has a period were thing don,t go as you wish, but you have to accept that and look forward if we had won we would have moved into forth spot hey we did that anyway no team is going to lie down for anyone who asspires to get to the champions league and they will battle hard as we have found out when it all gells which, is not far off now,city will be the force so many fear and all the teams the go on about their history please note it is behind you we are forward looking not ledgions in are own mind
WHEN YOUR SAT IN ROW Z
AND THE BALL HITS YOUR HEAD
ITS NOT ZAMORA..............ITS TEVEZ
oh well, bring on burnley!
city...ha ha ha.
By the way, Man City aren't a proper team anymore. They are all overplayed players who wear blue shirts. Really, it's teams like city that kinda ruin football
What a shame. It seems Adebayor may miss out on Champions League football afterall.
Absolute rubbish!! Hughes has got to realise that he has to play his strongest team in all occasions. Once again two of his best players were left on the bench, Ireland and Petrov and the game had sunk into a pathetic kick and rush affair when he saw fit to bring those players on, I called the changes half through the first half, when Hughes saw fit it was already too late!!
Santa Cruz is a good player, but far from being match fit and sharp, he needs to be used as a playing substitute not as a starting striker at this level. SWP should have been replaced on the hour with young Weiss as we made Birmingham's mediocre back 4 look good by firing targetless crosses into their penalty area. Very disappointing and until Hughes gets his act together, I fear that this will be our season.
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