Football:Petta's flair ignites Ipswich

Ipswich Town 1 Petta 16 Birmingham City 0 Half-time: 1-0 Attendance:15,901

A CLOSE-RUN thing, with Ipswich just about value for the three points as they braved and faced down a determined second-half onslaught from a Birmingham side who also have the whiff of Premiership status in their nostrils.

Both sides were without their leading marksmen and Samassi Abou, on loan from West Ham to replace the injured David Johnson, looked lost as a spearhead, although he did manage to give Kevin Poole a scare minutes from time with a snapshot the goalkeeper was lucky to block with his legs.

The decisive goal came in the 16th minute when Mark Venus stabbed his free-kick into the path of Bobby Petta as the Birmingham defence braced themselves for another high cross. The Dutchman coolly took two steps and volleyed a sweet shot across Poole and into the top of the net.

Two other bursts of flair by Petta almost brought more, but Poole stretched to divert Abou's header and James Scowcroft will still be wondering how he headed a dream of a cross wide of the post.

Birmingham began the second half with a gritty determination and purpose that had been lacking for the first 45 minutes. Paul Furlong replaced Chris Holland in their strikeforce and added an element of physical menace that did unsettle the Ipswich defenders until Manuel Thetis adjusted to the challenge with helpful assistance from Tony Mowbray.

Peter Ndlovu, however, did find more space for his trickery and forced the first save worthy of his name from Richard Wright within 10 minutes of the restart. The goalkeeper could not have done much about the same player's volley minutes later but it whistled past the wrong side of the post.

The fact that Ipswich were rattled was underlined when their manager, George Burley, replaced Petta with Richard Naylor with fully 25 minutes to play. It deprived Ipswich of the only real creative force they had shown but it did supply another midfield obstacle for their visitors to overcome.

Keiron Dyer spent the afternoon wide on the right and had little opportunity to get into the areas where real damage can be done. Nevertheless, his sure control and accurate passing were constant delights and a reminder of his huge potential. When he does start doing it where it hurts there is certain to be a queue of suitors lining up at Portman Road.