Game set & match to Lee’s newbies
LEE BOWYER praised his three Birmingham new boys who served up a crash, bang, wallop victory that left Nathan Jones in despair.
Juninho Bacuna, Lyle Taylor and Onel Hernandez all scored on a day when it was tennis balls as well as goals that rained down on unhappy Luton boss Jones.
Blues fans held up the game in the first half when it was still 0-0 by throwing tennis balls on to the pitch in protest at what they view as the neglect of owners Birmingham Sports Holdings Limited.
For a few minutes, stewards resembled Wimbledon ball boys as they cleared the pitch, but when the game restarted, it was Luton who double-faulted.
They conceded a first when Bacuna was set up by the calm assuredness in the box of Taylor as he controlled Gary Gardner’s cross.
Taylor himself then pounced on a mistake by Henri Lansbury to make it
2-0 just a minute after the restart.
And Hernandez made it a hat-trick of goals for the January newbies in the
69th minute by latching on to Jordan Graham’s cross.
Jones said: “The tennis balls killed the momentum and then there were stewards stepping on the pitch.
“But we saved our two most inept performances for this season for Birmingham.”
Bowyer said: “It was the goal that changed the game. They started better than us. Then we got the first goal and went on.”
BIRMINGHAM CITY: Etheridge 7; Colin 6, Pedersen 7, Mengi 7, Bela 7 (James 89th); Woods 7, Gardner 7; Graham 7, Bacuna
7 (Sunjic 76th), Hernandez 7, Taylor 8 (Jutkiewicz (74th), 6)
LUTON: Shea 6; Burke 6, Lockyer 5 (Mendes Gomez (57th) 6), Naismith 6; Bree
5, A Campbell 5, Lansbury 4 (Onyedinma
(57th) 5), Mpanzu 4, Bell 5; Cornick 6 (Osho (74th) 5), Adebayo 5
STAR MAN: Lyle Taylor
REF: D Bond