Birmingham City 0 Chelsea 0: Birmingham win back fans' hearts

Bruce sees dignity restored as his counterpart attacks decision to disallow Del Horno 'goal'

To the neutral - which in these days of Anyone But Chelsea means all except the London club's followers - the decision to give Ricardo Carvalho offside was perfectly correct. He may not have made contact with an attempted header from Arjen Robben's inswinging free-kick, which Asier del Horno turned in at the far post but, as the linesman later confirmed, Carvalho had deliberately come from an offside position and was attempting to interfere with play.

"We scored a clear goal," Mourinho insisted before admitting less contentiously: "The result is fair. Birmingham fought hard for 90 minutes and deserved a point. In the first half we were too passive and gave them an easy job to do."

It was certainly an unexpectedly limp beginning from the champions, which a dominant second half somehow failed to erase. In the final five minutes alone, they forced five chances, mostly blocked or deflected by the sort of determined defending that made a mockery of Birmingham's last home performance, the 7-0 defeat by Liverpool, and won back the hearts of their supporters. They will keep right on to the end of the road, whether or not it leads back to the Championship.

"We owed the supporters a performance and by God we gave one," said Steve Bruce, a proud manager. "Without eight or nine of our squad, we were up against it, and now we've restored a little bit of pride." One or two of them might return on Tuesday night for a critical game in hand at home to Bolton, offering an opportunity to put one over the other relegation candidates, West Bromwich Albion and Portsmouth, as well.

Bruce had his tactics right, matching up with Chelsea's two wide men and pushing Nicky Butt up on Claude Makelele to cut down the supply lines. Stephen Clemence and Damien Johnson sat deep and the defence, with three changes, looked more solid than the one that had conceded 12 goals in the past three games. What was lacking was the cutting edge that the injured Chris Sutton might have provided.

Oliver Tebily, the right-back producing what Bruce called "the game of his life", stole forward to force Petr Cech into his one save of the day, for after Emile Heskey had shot high into the crowd again, Cech could have been substituted by an outfield player. Mourinho was soon making changes, despite a flurry on either side of half-time in which Maik Taylor saved from Robben, Didier Drogba had two chances and Frank Lampard drove over the bar. Joe Cole and Hernan Crespo came on, the left-back Del Horno was removed, still miffed at his disallowed effort, and Chelsea settled for three men at the back.

Without wing-backs, the formation still looked a little unbalanced, and soon Michael Essien was on for Eidur Gudjohnsen, with Lampard pushed further forward.

Now the strain began to tell on the home side, whose many absentees included their leading goalscorer, Jiri Jarosik, the Chelsea loanee. A frantic final spell began with Crespo hitting Cole's pass straight into the goalkeeper's midriff. The striker then had a shot deflected for a corner, which a criminally unmarked Carvalho should have headed in, negating all the arguments over the previous incident.

At the very least, the title cannot be decided next weekend, when Mourinho had predicted Chelsea would win it at home to West Ham. Perhaps that was what induced his grumpiness, along with press reports of a breakdown in relations with his chief scout, Frank Arnesen. But after Arsenal's fizz in midweek, it was all very flat fare. The locals, of course, did not mind that and were all smiles leaving the ground. A few might even have been tempted to head down the A41 and cheer on Liverpool at The Hawthorns.