Battling Birmingham on the rise

Birmingham boss Alex McLeish praised the fighting qualities of his players after they moved out of the relegation zone on Wednesday.

McLeish’s side managed a hard-fought 1-1 draw with Everton at Goodison Park, with the point good enough to see them climb above West Ham into 17th place in a packed bottom-half of the English Premier League table.

Jean Beausejour’s header put the Carling Cup winners in front after just 17 minutes and despite John Heitinga’s superb leveller, McLeish was still pleased with the effort from his players, especially defensively.

“We had to get back to basics and we defended really well, but we didn’t really penetrate after a really bright start,” McLeish said.

“I have to pay compliment to the battling qualities of my players and we will need that right until the end of the season.”

The former Rangers manager is also expecting this season’s relegation battle to go right until the last day, with just 11 points separating eighth-placed Sunderland and bottom-of-the-league Wigan.

“It’s going to be tough and it’s going to go right to the wire,” he said.

“We have a lot of tough away games, but if we show that spirit and character and on our day we can win any game as we proved against Arsenal.”

Everton manager David Moyes bemoaned the injury to playmaker Mikel Arteta after the match, with the Spaniard, who was captain of the Toffees for the night, leaving the field early with a hamstring injury.

Moyes feels that Arteta’s absence hurt his side going forward as they failed to convert their second-half dominance into a victory, but expressed his happiness with the club’s recent form.

“It was a setback (to lose Arteta) and you could sense it was a setback for the crowd as well as we needed Mikel to be creative for us,” Moyes said.

“I couldn’t tell you how bad the injury is as I have not had a chance to speak to the medical team yet. He played very well on Saturday and to lose him so early on was a major blow.”

“We played better in the second half than in the first half, but we just didn’t have the quality to turn some of the good play into goals.”

“We are disappointed we couldn’t take full advantage and the get the home win, but we have picked some good points in the last few games.”