Premier League: Birmingham 1 Aston Villa 1

Roger Johnson and James Collins were the goalscorers as Birmingham City and Aston Villa claimed a deserved point from an enthralling St Andrew’s derby.

Both players will be pleased with their respective displays of predatory finishing as the defenders’ second-half goals helped their teams in their relegation fight as well as sharing out ‘second city derby’ bragging rights.

Despite their Carling Cup exit at St Andrew’s last month, Villa are now unbeaten in their last eight league encounters with Blues and the hosts rode their luck as their neighbours struck the bar four times.

Matt Derbyshire’s woeful miss was all the Blues had to show from a tight first half and with little to separate the sides, it was going to need a slice of luck to break the deadlock.

And it was Johnson who capitalised fully at a 49th-minute free kick. The ball ricocheted off team-mate David Murphy and straight to the centre-half who displayed a goal poacher’s instinct to volley home from eight yards out.

Birmingham’s good fortune was evident two minutes later as Johnson’s arm clearly diverted Ciaran Clark’s right-wing cross away from the goal, before Kyle Walker’s goal-line clearance and a Craig Gardner mis-hit denied the Blues a second as the match continued its end-to-end feel.

Villa, though, were far from out of it and deservedly equalised 17 minutes from time as the agile Collins swiveled to fire in a half-volley that nicked off Liam Rigdewell on its way to Ben Foster’s bottom left-hand corner.

Collins missed a further chance to win it late following Ridgewell’s goal-line clearance before Nathan Delfouneso rattled the bar and Birmingham striker Nikola Zigic headed narrowly wide in injury-time.

The point pushes Gerard Houllier’s men out of the bottom three – just one point and one place behind their cross-city rivals – in an increasingly congested bottom six teams at the foot of the Premier League table.