This was my first ever trip to St. Andrews, one of those grounds that looks better on the TV. A dreadful away concourse made out of nothing but concrete with a bar in it, you’d think that the place hadn’t actually finished being built yet. The TV cameras cleverly hide the horrendous ‘main stand’, a glorified bus shelter with a pie van on the outside of it. I say all this as its all I really noticed for the first half hour, some awful football played on a pitch with more bobbles than the Somme. The ball didn’t move freely at all, the far touchline looked as if a tractor had driven down it and it was no spectacle at all.

Injury and suspension ruled out Emre and Parker respectively, which saw us start the game with Butt and Dyer in central midfield, with Pattison wide left and Milner on the right. The first half seemed to totally bypass Dyer in the middle of the park, struggled to make any kind of impact, leaving Butt to do all the work, which he did well. Milner was bright, but Pattison, sadly was pretty poor. Some basic passing really let him down, and with O’Brien spending half time warming up I expected him to be withdrawn, but it was Siberski who came off.

DJ Campbell open the scoring with a scrappy goal after 15 minutes, incidentally another high delivery into the box that we found unable to deal with. This is getting a bit silly now, the Man Utd game apart, most of the goals scored against us in recent weeks have involved a cross into the box that we’ve found unable to deal with. Inexperience is probably to blame, after all the defence is an absolutely patched up effort. Huntington in particular was guilty of some extremely shaky moments in his own box, felt like it was Bramble for a few moments!

A couple of half chances from Martins was the most we saw in terms of goalmouth action at the other end, until the 40th minute. A James Milner cross was converted at the near post by Steven Taylor to the delight of the 4,500 Geordies at the other end. Good to see Taylor chipping in with another goal, no crazy celebrations this time though. Noticed Given telling him to calm down about 5 times after he scored though! The 43rd minute saw the major turning point, with Martins racing clear on goal he was rugby tackled by Jaidi, who was duly sent off. It was right on the edge of the box, but from where we all were it looked a certain penalty, so we were all a bit baffled when a wall was being formed! Martins must be getting a bit annoyed now, thats twice in a couple of weeks he’s been through on goal only to be hauled down. In both incidents (Blackburn and now) we’ve not gone on to score as a result, pretty frustrating.

The second half was a pretty good performance from us, totally dominating it took Birmingham about 10 minutes to get a notable touch on the ball. The pace of Dyer, who was now upfront, and Martins was terrifying Upson, and the direct running of Milner and O’Brien on the flanks was really stretching their depleted defence. In the 54th minute Martins tried to play through Dyer, and via an error from the defender, Dyer had the box to himself. A quick glance up was followed by a fine shot into the bottom corner. Cue wild celebrations, Dyer points to Martins to give the credit to him, but it really was a good goal. At this point the goals should have really flowed, but a lack of a killer instinct, bad luck and some cockiness infront of goal cost us. Milner hit the underside of the bar with a freekick that somehow bounced off the keeper and went wide. Martins had a brilliant chance but tried to take it round the keeper twice rather than just shooting.

Our inability to kill Birmingham off came back to bite us in the 85th minute when the defence yet again failed to clear a standard cross into the box, and Larsson drove a good shot into the top corner. The few Birmingham fans that were left by now couldn’t believe it, and some dangerous runs from McSheffrey after this made it look like they could have even won it. A wonderful chance popped up for us at the very end, with Dyer in the box with time and space, only to cross it into no-mans land rather than just shoot.

Overall, a good performance full of pace and direct running, but a lack of a killer instinct let us down badly. A replay is the last thing we need with our injuries, but a home tie against Birmingham will hopefully see us go through.

Newcastle performance: 7/10
Birmingham performance: 5/10
Home fans: 2/10
Away fans: 9/10
Man of the match: Milner.