Wilshere off but Arsenal give Birmingham the blues

Marouane Chamakh fired Arsenal to a 2-1 win over Birmingham on Saturday, but the come-from-behind victory was soured by Jack Wilshere’s 90th minute dismissal.

Nikola Zigic had given Birmingham a 33rd minute lead that was cancelled out by Samir Nasri’s 41st minute penalty at the Emirates Stadium.

Chamakh’s second-half strike ensured Arsenal claimed their first victory in four league games, but Wilshere’s challenge and his subsequent three-match suspension took the edge off the success.

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has spoken out about the number of rash challenges in the Premier League this season and repeated his concerns in the match programme.

He will have been frustrated, therefore, to see Wilshere’s lunge on Zigic that prompted referee Martin Atkinson to issue a straight red card.

This was Wenger’s 800th game in charge of Arsenal and, after successive defeats to West Bromwich Albion and Chelsea, it was important the Gunners marked the occasion with a win to avoid losing more ground in the title race.

Arsenal had enough pressure in the early stages here to suggest they would easily recover from those defeats.

England midfielder Wilshere was presented with the club’s player of the month award for September before kick-off and the teenager quickly demonstrated why by starting a series of attacking moves.

The most enterprising came after just five minutes when the midfielder exchanged passes with Chamakh to create an opening that was snuffed out when City defender Stephen Carr blocked the Moroccan?s shot.

The home side thought they had made the breakthrough in the 18th minute when Sebastien Squillaci rose to head home from Nasri’s free kick only for the effort to be ruled offside.

The momentum of the game was moving in Arsenal’s favour with the visitors only rarely threatening Lukasz Fabianski’s goal.

Yet Birmingham still managed to conjure the game’s opening goal in the 33rd minute when they unpicked the home defence with alarming ease.

Zigic’s height was always likely to trouble the Arsenal centre backs and the Serbian was allowed to climb unhindered to meet Keith Fahey’s left wing cross and direct a header beyond Fabianski.

It was Zigic’s first Premier League goal and should have been quickly followed by a second Blues effort when Fahey scooped a volley over the bar from close range.

Arsenal needed to stage a swift response and they were level four minutes before the break in controversial circumstances when Chamakh went down under a challenge from Scott Dann.

Birmingham insisted the striker had dived and television replays showed there had been only the minimum of contact but that was enough to persuade Atkinson to award a penalty that was expertly dispatched by Nasri.

The Arsenal midfielder was fortunate to remain on the field three minutes later, however, when he clashed with Liam Ridgwell and appeared to kick out at the City full-back.

The two incidents suggested that luck was on Arsenal’s side but there was nothing fortunate about their second goal that came two minutes into the second half.

Wilshere was again involved, linking this time with Alex Song before releasing Chamakh who escaped a flimsy challenge from Carr and stabbed the ball past Foster.