Birmingham City 2, Middlesbrough 0: A third successive victory that further allayed Birmingham City's fears of relegation was marred by injuries to Emile Heskey and David Dunn.
Heskey, who gave Gareth Southgate a torrid afternoon, limped off with a suspected hamstring injury and is in danger of missing Birmingham's next game.
Even worse was the departure of Dunn in the 54th minute. He is unlikely to play for several weeks after pulling a hamstring for the fifth time since he joined Birmingham 18 months ago.
"It's the fifth time it's happened since he's been with us and it's a real kick in the teeth," said Birmingham manager Steve Bruce. "He's a huge talent who gives us something extra."
Heskey's injury is less serious but did serve to emphasise the shortage of strikers at Bruce's disposal. With Dwight Yorke also injured and Mikael Forssell out for the season he has just Clinton Morrison available to play at Fulham tomorrow and will try to rectify the shortage during the upcoming transfer window.
"I had hoped to leave the squad as it was," Bruce added, "but I'm definitely going to have to try and do something next month."
Curiously, the game contained a third hamstring victim: Middlesbrough striker Mark Viduka. He limped off in the 24th minute but by that time Boro were a goal behind after Heskey had headed Maik Taylor's free-kick into the path of Morrison, who fired home his fourth goal in as many starts.
Any optimism that may have engendered for the second half in the Boro camp was punctured deep into first-half stoppage time when Blues added a second.
It followed a short corner taken by Robbie Savage who, receiving the ball back, chipped it into the six-yard box for Heskey to head deftly home.
The Boro manager, Steve McClaren, thought that strike should have only put the home side ahead as his side had a goal disallowed in the third minute.
Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink cut inside and his shot was deflected into the roof of the Birmingham goal by Stan Lazaridis. But a linesman had judged a Boro player offside and the effort was ruled out.
"I can't understand why it was disallowed," McClaren said. "I've seen the replay and it looked a perfectly good goal. But that's no excuse for our defeat. Not every decision goes your way and our performance was very poor. We did not start the game with the intensity of Birmingham City and this was a good opportunity to get our Christmas programme off to a good start."
With games to come in the next few days against Manchester United and Chelsea, Boro's dreams of booking their place in the Champions League could be in ruins very shortly, especially if they repeat this performance.
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