High price paid for St Andrew’s mistakes

AS Jeremie Boga’s ill-fated penalty went soaring into the Craven Cottage away end, it took Birmingham City’s hopes of a precious point – and who knows, perhaps even more – with it,

If the worst comes to the worst this season, the 20-year-old’s error will go down as one of the pivotal moments.

Boga, who had so accurately found the top corner of the Sheffield United net in the previous away game, couldn’t summon anything like the same precision at Fulham and his spot-kick ballooned over Marcus Bettinelli’s crossbar.

Blues’ wait for a shot on target was agonisingly extended. Agonisingly, frustratingly, for some – intolerably.

Birmingham City are in deep trouble. They may rally to beat QPR next weekend; defensively they look a better unit than at the start of the season.

Sheffield United, Wolves and sporadically free-flowing Fulham have all been stymied for long periods of the last three games.

There is nothing to say they can’t do something similar next Saturday – and a clean sheet would give them the chance of a positive outcome.

But when you’re averaging half a goal a game, you need to be flawless at the back to produce such results. That pressure is suffocating.

To their credit, Blues dug in and did enough to repel the continued assaults on their goal at Craven Cottage. The makeshift defence of Josh Dacres-Cogley, Michael Morrison and Jonathan Grounds, flanked by wing-backs Emilio Nsue and Cohen Bramall, stood up reasonably well.

Dacres-Cogley invited one attack with an errant pass infield to Stephen Gleeson, which saw Stefan Johansen sent away, only for Grounds to time his intervention perfectly.

But for the most part, playing on the right side of a three, the homegrown defender did well in as demanding a first appearance of the season as it is possible to imagine.

On the other side of the field Bramall’s display was even more promising. In a first half in which Blues struggled, the Arsenal loanee’s forays up the left were a welcome relief.

His pace, both in attack and defence was much needed, though the concession of a couple of freekicks on the corner of Blues’ box also spoke of more to learn. By the time he was replaced he had faded.

But at the moment that’s largely deckchairs and Titanic. While the midfield continue to struggle to string passes together with any speed of thought or deed, while the goal threat remains so minimal, the rest of the Championship is escaping those marooned in the bottom four.

Blues are paying a heavy price for the succession of mistakes made over the past year.