Dunn double gives Birmingham the blues

Blackburn midfielder David Dunn scored twice against Birmingham as Rovers virtually ended their relegation fears with a 2-1 win on Wednesday.

Sam Allardyce’s team are 14 points clear of the relegation zone with seven games to play thanks to Dunn’s heroics against his former club at Ewood Park.

Four days after putting a dent in Chelsea’s challenge to win the Premier League title with a 1-1 draw, Blackburn all but achieved their own aim of staying in the top-flight.

Dunn’s early goal was cancelled out by James McFadden but the midfielder struck again midway through the second half to seal the points.

Dunn, who spent three-and-a-half years with Birmingham before rejoining Rovers in 2007, was fit to start after limping off with a calf problem during Sunday’s clash.

And it took Dunn just five minutes to show Birmingham what they have been missing as he opened the scoring with a superb strike.

A long punt into the Birmingham penalty area caused Roger Johnson to head weakly towards Dunn and he seized possession with a neat piece of control before smashing his shot past City goalkeeper Joe Hart.

McFadden almost pulled Birmingham level with a fierce strike from outside the area, but Rovers goalkeeper Jason Brown pushed the deflected effort away for a corner.

From the resulting set-piece, Birmingham defender Liam Ridgewell went close with a header that cleared the crossbar.

Birmingham threatened again when Lee Bowyer chipped a pass to Craig Gardner, but the former Aston Villa midfielder lashed his shot high and wide.

Dunn thought he had scored again before half-time when he took Michel Salgado’s pass and drove his shot past Hart. However, the strike was ruled out for a foul by former Real Madrid defender Salgado in the build-up.

Birmingham drew level 10 minutes into the second half when referee Mark Clattenburg awarded Birmingham a free-kick just outside the box for a push on Johnson by Morten Gamst Pedersen.

McFadden is something of a deadball expert and he stepped up to curl his free-kick around the Blackburn wall and into the bottom corner of the net.

But Rovers regained their lead in thr 67th minute as Dunn showed tremendous desire to get to El-Hadji Diouf’s corner ahead of Stephen Carr and head home from close range.

Dunn was so overjoyed at sinking his old club that he earned a booking for an over-exuberant celebration with the Blackburn fans.

Birmingham pushed forward for another equaliser but McFadden’s effort was cleared, while Johnson had a shot easily saved by Brown.