Ipswich 0 Birmingham 1

JIM MAGILTON tipped Birmingham for automatic promotion as James McFadden put away the club’s first penalty of the season.

The Scottish strike ace bagged the winner in the 39th minute after Moritz Volz handled a cross from midfielder Kemy Agustien.

Yet despite the win, and the Ipswich manager’s kind words, Alex McLeish’s side cannot afford many more performances like this. Birmingham were poor. Luckily for them in a dire match, they came up against a team which was even worse.

Ipswich chief Magilton, whose team have won just once in seven matches, insisted: “Birmingham will go up automatically — they have enough about them to do it. They are a Premier League club with Premier League players.

“They didn’t have to do anything fantastic. They took their chance and then closed out the game.

“For 30 minutes we were very good but I thought we lacked a bit of quality and we gave away a soft penalty. He had his eye off the ball and it hit his hand.”

Birmingham chief McLeish, who rested striker Kevin Phillips by leaving him on the bench, admitted: “It wasn’t a great game — but we did enough.

“We could have shown more composure but we showed a lot of character after back-to-back defeats.

“The penalty was a long time in coming as it was our first of the season.

“I thought we defended well. Getting a shut-out is as important for keepers and defenders as scoring goals are for strikers.”

The penalty was a surprise because even at that stage, the game looked set for a goalless draw.

McFadden executed it impressively, though, sending Richard Wright the wrong way for only his fourth goal of the season.

The visitors began to control the midfield and the impressive Agustien came close to grabbing a second with 15 minutes remaining.

Franck Queudrue played the ball from the left flank and Agustien drove into the area and smashed a left-foot strike toward the top corner but Wright produced a fine save.

Apart from that, there few decent attempts. Brum’s Liam Ridgewell produced an excellent challenge to deny Danny Haynes before Alan Quinn sent a powerful strike just wide.

Towards the end, Ipswich fans were singing ‘What a load of rubbish’ and it was hard to disagree with them.

Magilton now needs a much-improved display at Derby tomorrow and if they struggle, he could find himself under real pressure from owner Marcus Evans.

Charlie Wyett (The Sun)