MATCH STATS

SLAVEN BILIC is back on top of the Championship, but West Brom ended lockdown as they began it – by failing to unpick a stubborn defence.

Way back in March, Bilic’s side were held to a goalless draw by Swansea City – and despite the conjuring skills of Matheus Pereira, their resumption after three months finished in another stalemate.

In fact, the Baggies have now failed to score in their last three league games – a statistical quirk rather than a trend, admittedly – but one that will irritate their mood-swinging manager.

The point earned against a resolute Birmingham was enough to take West Brom back above Leeds at the top of the table – but only on goal difference.

Any kind of positive result for Leeds at Cardiff today will put the Yorkshire club back in the driving seat with eight games to go.

Bilic said: “I’m not happy with the result as I thought we did enough to win it but it came down to final product.

“But I can’t blame the players too much because we haven’t played for so long and finishing comes with match sharpness.

“The table looks better than it did before though.”

Pereira teased and tormented the Blues for much of the game and saw a curling low shot miss the foot of the Blues post by inches.

But Lee Camp in Birmingham’s goal typified a fighting display by denying Pereira from a free-kick and then managing to get the ball away in a late scramble.

Birmingham were gutsy throughout and although their patched-up, youthful team ran out of steam, this was a decent effort from a mid-table side.

Football’s first shuttered derby was a strange affair, made more odd by the normal pumping big-screen noise both before kick-off and at half-time.

The rest of the game was played out in eerie quiet – a derby-day collision soothed by sanitiser and disinfectant instead of the normal feverish madness of the real thing.

Mind you, the absence of a crowd for a local bash-up does have some benefits.

One is that every raging word and syllable screamed by a crazed