Fulham held Birmingham to a 1-1 Premier League draw at St Andrews as new boss Roy Hodgson prepares to take control. Simon Davies had put Fulham ahead in the eighth minute but Birmingham equalised through Sebastian Larsson. Fulham had to hold on with ten men after Hameur Bouazza was sent off.

It was yet another match where Fulham started brightly, took the lead and conceded an equaliser, although Hodgson will at least have been impressed by their battling spirit after Bouazza walked for a second yellow card with 11 minutes of normal time left.

Bouazza himself had played well up until that point, hogging the left touchline and causing Stephen Kelly problems with his pace and trickery as early as the third minute, Danny Murphy's subsequent shot blocked behind for a corner.

The counter that followed should have seen the hosts take the lead, Gary McSheffrey sent clean through past an unsteady-looking Paul Konchesky but only able to fire over the bar one-on-one with Antti Niemi.

Fulham then went ahead, through a simple move that they repeated throughout the match and which Alex McLeish will have to address with his new charges looking poor at defending set pieces. Simon Davies swung a corner from the left towards the near post, where Bocanegra rose to power a header home.

The visitors were the better side in the first half, David Healy given one chance when the Blues failed to deal with a high ball but shooting tamely at Maik Taylor, the first of several opportunities for a player looking out of sorts at the highest level.

Whatever McLeish said to his team at the break clearly worked, Birmingham coming out like a side possessed, aided by the creativity of half-time entrant Mehdi Nafti.

Fabrice Muamba was denied by Dejan Stefanovic after being played in by Cameron Jerome following a Konchesky error and the Congo-born England Under-21 international was involved in the equaliser, sending an excellent low crossfield pass to Swede Larsson, who fired in off the leg of Elliot Omosuzi tracking back after being caught out of position.

Nafti then went close with a long-range effort while Niemi was forced into some trademark cat-like antics when he saved spectacularly from former Fulham "favourite" Franck Queudrue but the match pretty much died when Bouazza was rightly shown a second yellow for needlessly sliding in late on Queudrue, having already been warned for chopping down Kelly.

Fulham sat back and soaked up the pressure from Birmingham, who by now had run out of ideas, and aside from half-chances for sub Gary O'Connor and a half-hearted lob from Fulham's Davies, the game trotted to a draw that sees neither side improve on their positions of 14th and third-bottom respectively.

Reda Maher / Eurosport