Honours even as Roberts stops Blues singing

West Bromwich Albion 1 Birmingham City 1

West Bromwich Albion's chronic inability to score more than one goal at home continued to trouble them yesterday, as they conceded a draw against a hard-working Birmingham City side. Before this derby, West Brom had won only two of their four home matches. No prizes for guessing the scoreline on those occasions. Gary Megson's team were the kings of the one-nils on their way to automatic promotion last season, and little has changed in the Premiership so far.

Still, any kind of win would have done against Birmingham City, but the Baggies' strikers were wasteful in front of goal and Megson had to settle for a draw. "Bearing in mind the number of chances we created, especially in the second half," the manager said, "I am disappointed with the point."

West Brom and City both came up in the summer, and these closest of Midlands rivals also dropped out of the top flight together 18 years ago. In that 1985-86 campaign, West Brom won the home and away games, and, yes, both were 1-0 results.

However, the likelihood of a goal here seemed remote after a scrappy first half of few chances. With 11 minutes gone, Lee Hughes's back-heel from the right touchline opened up the Birmingham defence, and allowed Jason Roberts to gain possession on the edge of the area. He teed up Andy Johnson, but the West Brom No 10 sent his shot ballooning over the bar.

Birmingham seemed content to sit back and hit West Brom on the break. The ploy nearly paid off when, after 26 minutes, Stan Lazaridis gathered possession on the left wing before curling in an inch-perfect cross towards Stern John. The Trinidadian international headed the ball goalwards, but Russell Hoult spread himself well to intercept.

West Brom started the second half with far more purpose, looking to feed the two front-men much quicker. Johnson, in particular, was more willing to get involved in the action and his industry almost produced the opener when, on 55 minutes, he set off on a run at goal before unleashing a stinging right-foot drive that only just missed the target. Two minutes later, Roberts controlled a Johnson throw-in 25 yards from the Birmingham goal and then released the left-back, Neil Clement, down the wing. The former Chelsea defender whipped in an early cross that bisected the visitors' defence and fell to Lee Marshall on the six-yard line. The midfielder's instant shot would have found the target had Nico Vaesen not spread himself well to save.

West Brom were rampant now, and should have scored when their talismanic centre-forward, Hughes, broke Birmingham's offside trap and found himself one-on-one with the keeper. The angle may have been tight, but you would have expected the striker to do better than miss the goal by more than 10 feet. Hughes was replaced by Scott Dobie, but he, too, missed a wonderful chance, when he raced on to Roberts's deft flick-on only to see his chip saved by the excellent Vaesen.

The home fans might have thought that the visitors would finally be broken when the Birmingham defender Olivier Tebily was sent off for two bookable offences 10 minutes from time. But, then, out of the blue, the Blues broke forward and Darryl Powell's cross took a deflection off Darren Moore before looping over the stranded Hoult. Game over, you thought, as Birmingham packed the defence with three minutes to go.

As is so often the case in tight matches, though, the goal lifted all inhibitions, and West Brom equalised less than a minute later. Roberts latched on to yet another long ball, and then placed the ball in the far corner of Vaesen's net. "Having taken the lead so late in the game," said Steve Bruce, the Birmingham manager, "we really shouldn't have let them equalise".

Not the perfect result, but at least no one can still accuse Megson's men of only ever winning 1-0 at home.

West Bromwich Albion 1
Roberts 87

Birmingham City 1
Moore og 86

Half-time 0-0 Attendance: 27,021