3/1 To Win
Derby County earned a point in a 2-2 draw against Birmingham City in an action packed first 30 minutes at St. Andrew’s.
The point keeps the Rams in eighth place, three points behind Middlesbrough in sixth and with a game in hand.
The Blues and Rams traded blows in the opening stages of the game with Birmingham twice taking the lead through Lukas Jutkiewicz then Michael Morrison, only to be cancelled out by goals from Martyn Waghorn and Richard Keogh.
It took just two minutes for the home side to find the lead from the first corner of the game. – delivery found Jutkiewicz at the far post to fire in.
The lead was short-lived and in the seventh minute, the Rams equalised. Waghorn beat the offside trap when Jayden Bogle lifted a long ball up the pitch to him. The forward coolly latched on and lifted his effort over Lee Camp from the edge of the box to bounce over the line.
Inside the first 20 minutes, the Blues took the lead for the second time in the half again from a corner. Gary Gardner sent a powerful header towards goal which was initially blocked into the path of Morrison to tap in.
Immediately after, Waghorn lead the attack again squaring to Mount whose powerful effort was batted away. The equaliser came eight minutes later, just before the half-hour mark, from a Rams corner.
Mason Mount played it short to Harry Wilson who found a wide open Ashley Cole who had time to whip a pin-point cross to the far post for Keogh to direct his powerful header past Camp.
Moments before the break, Derby’s appeals for a penalty were waved off after Tom Lawrence drove into the area and his shot was handballed by a Birmingham defender.
Five minutes after the restart, Che Adams was played through, but was outpaced by Cole who knocked the ball out just as the Blues forward looked to take Kelle Roos on. Bogle then cleared the shot from the resulting corner off the line.
Birmingham again pushed to take the lead when Jutkiewicz header struck the post from another Blues corner.
A quickly taken short corner by Mount in the 75th minute was well worked back in the area by the Rams and back to the midfielder to rifle a shot from inside the area, but his effort was palmed away by Camp, but the Rams looked to have taken the upper hand for the closing stages of the game.
With minutes left to play Fikayo Tomori almost snatched all three points for Derby. Having fired over just five minutes before, the centre-back was struck from close range after a scramble in the area from Mounts corner. The second chance fell to Tomori again but his effort was swallowed in the traffic and eventually cleared.
In added time the Blues hit the Rams on the counter and good work by Jacques Maghoma down the left of the area gave David Davis chance to catch up, but his powerful close-range effort was blocked by Cole.
Birmingham City: Camp; Colin, Dean, Morrison (C), Pederson; Maghoma, Gardner, Davis, Jota; Adams, Jutkiewicz (Vassell, 79)
Unused Subs: Trueman, Roberts, Gardner, Mrabti, Lakin, Harding
Derby County: Roos; Bogle, Keogh (C), Tomori, Cole; Bryson, Johnson, Mount; Wilson (Bennett, 71), Waghorn (Marriott, 70), Lawrence (Nugent, 84)
Unused Subs Carson, Wisdom, Evans, Huddlestone
