Birmingham forced Chelsea into coming back from a goal behind in a 5-goal thriller to start off their Premier League campaign for this season.
Ex-player Mikael Forssell headed the ball past Petr Cech in the 15th minute to send the travelling fans into ecstasies, but Blues were unable to hold on to the lead and Pizarro levelled the score with his debut goal two minutes later.
Chelsea continued to apply the pressure and were ahead just after the half hour with a strike from Malouda.
At this point it would have been easy for Birmingham to collapse, but Olivier Kapo scored a superb equaliser in the 36th minute with a left-footer screamer that nearly took the corner out of Cech’s net.
Five minutes into the second half, Chelsea were ahead again with a fine strike from Michael Essien that Doyle was unable to keep hold of.
The home team continued to push forward, forcing Doyle into making more saves, but Birmingham tried to chase an equaliser in the last ten minutes.
Despite losing, Birmingham gave a very good account of themselves, playing decent football and not resorting to the long ball unnecessarily. If they can continue in this vein then the points will come.
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