Birmingham City and Stoke City managers in agreement over what led to stalemate

Both Blues boss John Eustace and his opposite number at Stoke, Alex Neil pointed to the conditions in the West Midlands but they also had a dig at the state of the St Andrew’s pitch.

The Potters were arguably the better team and had the bulk of the possession, though Birmingham had the better chances of a poor affair. Stoke were denied by John Ruddy as the veteran keeper turned away Tyreece Campbell’s well-struck shot in the first half and following that really failed to challenge the Blues’ goal.

At the other end, Krystian Bielik should have scored late on but couldn’t take advantage of an error by Stoke’s Jack Bonham.

Afterwards, it wasn’t so much the quality of the pitch as the quality of it that dominated both managers’ post-match thoughts as two teams with very little to play for produced performances severely lacking in quality.

“It obviously wasn’t a spectacle, it wasn’t a great game with the conditions not really helping us on that side of things, but I thought the way we defended was very solid,” said Blues’ John Eustace.

“We didn’t play very well today, of course we didn’t, we know that, but the way we stuck in in real difficult moments… The conditions didn’t help us, when you look at our front players they’re all ball carriers, the pitch doesn’t help us on that, you know the wind and everything didn’t help our front players it suited their team better for sure.

“I think they had one chance in the first half where John (Ruddy) pulled off a fantastic save. It was a good save but that’s what he’s there for, he’s been outstanding for us all season. Apart from that they had some possession which didn’t really hurt us. Their lad has made a fantastic block at the end where we could have nicked the game 1-0.”

Neil agreed, describing the pitch as ‘really poor’.

“I thought we played well in spells, our build-up play from our 18 (yard box) to their 18 was really good,” said the Stoke City boss. “I thought in the final third was didn’t really do enough to get the goal. I thought the conditions didn’t help, the wind picked up, the rain came on and off a little bit but the pitch was poor, the pitch was really poor.

“I thought the one which summed it up was when Tyreece Campbell went down the left and squared it for Josh Laurent and the ball literally bobbled all the way across the pitch and he just flung his leg at it and didn’t even make any contact.

“They’re a bigger and more physical team than us, but I thought we stood up to that really well. It was always going to be lost a header, lost a flick on or a throw-in or a set play where I thought we were going to concede a goal, but I thought the lads stood up to it great.”