Newcastle	2 - 1	Birmingham
Scorers Martins (pen) 37 Beye 90  Booked Barton 78	Half Time ( 1 - 1 )	Scorers Jerome 9  Booked Nafti 36 Larsson 81

An injury time goal from Habib Beye gave Newcastle United a home win against a hard-working Birmingham side.

Birmingham took the lead when Mathew Sadler hit a long ball forward to find Cameron Jerome who went around Shay Given to find the target.

Newcastle then equalised through Obafemi Martins who found the back of the net from the penalty spot after he was brought down by Mathew Sadler. With hardly any time left Defender Habib Beye found himself unmarked in the area to slot home Emre's Corner with a fine header.

Birmingham had much of the better play and looked better than Newcastle throughout most of the match. Early on Newcastle looked like they were going to build on the good performance against Arsenal with some good link up plays but they never really caused the visitors much trouble at the back.

Jerome's hard work paid off early on as he was the first to react to Sadler's long range pass and shrugged off any challenges to find the first goal of the game. Newcastle was giving the ball away for no reason just trying to find Martins and Smith up front.

The back line for Birmingham played as a unit and dealt with any pressure from the Newcastle attackers. Birmingham was continually trying to win the ball to set-up Jerome to maybe score a second. Then Mark Viduka came on for Nicky Butt and the extra man in the area caused a bit of trouble for Birmingham which indirectly resulted in Sadler miss-timing his tackle on Martins, resulting in a spot kick which Martins slotted home.

Newcastle finally got some energy and began making chances through Milner who hit the crossbar from 20 yards. Jerome was still creating chances. His pace and the long balls were causing Newcastle problems which made Shay Given have to save low down to keep Newcastle on level terms.

Mikael Forssell came on in a daring move by Birmingham to try to win the game. But at the end the visitors left with nothing when defender Habib Beye got clear at the near post to head in a cross from Emre. Resulting in Newcastle's first win in 7 games, easing some of the pressure on Big Sam.


Newcastle: Newcastle: Shay Given, Habib Beye, Charles N'Zogbia, Steven Taylor, David Rozehnal, Nicky Butt, Joey Barton, Geremi (c), James Milner, Alan Smith, Obafemi Martins . Subs: Steve Harper, Jose Enrique, David Edgar, Emre, Mark Viduka.

Birmingham: Birmingham: Maik Taylor, Stephen Kelly, Mathew Sadler, Rafael Schmitz, Liam Ridgweel (c), Sebastian Larsson, Cameron Jerome, Gary McSheffrey, Mehdi Nafti, Daniel De Ridder, Fabrice Muamba. Subs: Colin Doyle, Garry O'Connor, Mikael Forssell, Stuart Parnaby, Olivier Kapo

Att: 49,948

Ref: Rob Styles

By Ronan McKitterick