Nine Man Boro See Off Birmingham.

Birmingham City went down 3-1 to a Middlesbrough side that finished the game with just nine men left on the field.

The win for the home side leaves them with an outside chance of reaching the playoffs, while Blues are still looking for the points that would make them mathematically safe from the drop.

Middlesbrough turned the game their way with two goals a couple of minutes in the first half, Danny Graham and Jason Butterfield doing the damage. But before the first half came to an end Emyr Huws fired home from a good 40 yards.

And things then looked like they had got even better for City when Boro lost two of their players, Ken Omeruo and Ben Gibson, with both picking up two bookings.

This made City push forward for an equaliser but were caught out by a long ball as the game came to an end and Middlesbrough had made the scoreline look good.

City got off to a good start, Huws once again looked good and managed to get a cross in which was cleared, then when Lee Novak picked up a ball from Paul Caddis and he beat Konstantopoulos, the home side had to rely on on an offside decision to keep the score level.

The home side also had their moments, a good move which saw a ball come in from the right to Butterfield, he controlled and found Chalobah who forced a brilliant save out of Darren Randolph.

The resulting corner caused a bit of a mix up and it was only Novak on the line that prevented the home side from taking the lead.

Then at the other end Novak got on the end of a ball from Shinnie, but his effort went wide of the post. Then City were unlucky not to have grabbed the lead when Shinnie beat the Boro keeper but Omeruo headed the ball over the bar.

Middlesbrough then forced a corner, Leadbitter took the kick, Woodgate headed down and Graham beat Randolph to put the home side in the lead.

And before City had time to recover, Boro hit them again. The time the goal came from a throw in taken by Varga, he found Butterfield who turned and hit the ball into the net, leaving Blues looking down and out.

But City hit back before half time with a goal out of nothing, Huws had the ball and moved forward into a bit of space and then riffled the ball into the corner of the Boro net from distance and Blues were back in the game.

The home side looked more likely to score in the opening period of the second half and were almost celebrating their third goal when Adomah found Graham who lifted the ball over Randolph only to see it drop onto the roof of the net.

Graham then had Randolph making another good save when he picked the ball up from Butterfield, but the keeper was equal to his side footed effort.

Blues were then lucky when Tomlin hit the post before their luck looked to have taken a turn for the better when Omeruo fouled Jordan Ibe and the ref showed him his second yellow card.

Then the home side went down to nine men when Gibson had a tug at Nikola Zigic, he too was shown his second yellow and Birmingham carried on pressing for the equaliser.

But the visitors got caught on the break late on and Tomlin managed to shake off the attentions of his marker and fired in a low shot that gave Randolph no chance.

So Blues ended up travelling home with nothing from a game which they could have so easily had more.

Middlesbrough: Konstantopoulos, Varga, Omeruo, Gibson, Friend (Woodgate 20), Leadbitter, Chalobah, Butterfield (Tomlin 76), Adomah, Graham, Williams (Ledesma 67)

Blues: Randolph, Spector (Adeyemi 83), Reilly, Caddis, Thorpe, Robinson, Burke, Huws, Shinnie (Ibe 66), Macheda, Novak (Zigic 50)

Referee: Carl Boyeson

Attendance: 13,399