I’ve managed to scrape enough cash together for a (slightly) better camera, woohoo! See more pics from this Prem contest and past matches at the Illarterate Flickr stream.

Brum boss Alex McLeish will be well pleased with his side's first away win

Forget about curates’ eggs, Wigan’s performance today was more like a Scotch egg: on the whole meaty, but with an all too apparent yellow centre. There was plenty of sausagey goodness to be found, but the whole thing was spoiled by the failings of Latics’ eggy underbelly: the defence. And man, does it leave a bad taste in the mouth.

On another day, maybe two goals would have been enough to grab all three points, but this wasn’t another day. Wigan were left to rue missed chances, as for all their smooth passing and marauding runs they only had one goal to show for their efforts. In fact, the backline had Mike Pollitt — who entered the fray early on thanks to another breakdown from Chris ‘Glass Back’ Kirkland — to thank for a magnificent save or two to deny Birmingham a  goal in the first 45 minutes.

In truth, though, Wigan dominated the first half. So far this season, I don’t believe I’ve seen us look so comfortable and trouble a defence as much as we did prior to 3:47PM today – the notoriously dodgy centre backs held out quite well, and Wigan really could have put the match to bed by the interval.

Hugo Rodallega and Charles N’Zogbia ran riot, creating chances aplenty and really taking it to the opposition, who by and large had no answer. The latter’s controlled strike gave the home side a lead on 33 minutes, and it was certainly coming. The former had more than a few glorious chances to make it 2-0 and make the scoreline a bit more reflective of first half possession and chances created.

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