Birmingham manager Alex McLeish was the happier of the two bosses in St Andrews following a keenly contested match that ended in a 2-2 draw. Birmingham were tipped to do badly against Arsenal in their live Premiership clash last Saturday and when Matt Taylor was sent off for a horror tackle on Croatian forward Eduardo, it looked like the Blues challenge had all but ended.

Taylor's bad tackle on Eduardo meant that the Blues played most of the match with just 10 men on the field. Eduardo suffered a broken leg that is thought to be serious enough to keep him off the field for at least nine months.

The game per se began in a sedate fashion and was brought to a standstill when Taylor's tackle caught Eduardo early on. It took at least six minutes for the medical staff to take off Dudu who went straight to the hospital.

Although Arsenal had the numbers advantage, they suffered a shock goal on 28 minutes when James McFadden put the Blues ahead after winning a free-kick following a challenge by Flamini. Soon after Adebayor had a great chance to equalize, but the Togo striker had an off-day in front of the goal.

Alexander Hleb then sent in a brilliant cross, but once again Adebayor failed to make the most of it and headed wide. Philippe Senderos then saved the day for Arsenal in the late stage of the first-half as his pressure forced McFadden to shoot wide with an open goal in front of him.

Just after the break Arsenal equalized through Theo Walcott when he flicked in a loose ball from a Fabregas cross. Maik Taylor came under huge pressure in the Birmingham goal and managed to keep most of the balls out, but Walcott struck again on 55 minutes to put the Gunners ahead.

Just when it looked like Arsenal would clinch all three points, Gael Clichy brought down Parnaby in the box and McFadden fired home the resulting penalty to snatch one point for Birmingham.

The draw means Arsenal hold a slender three-point lead having collected 64 points from 27 games, while Birmingham are 17th with 23 points from 27 games.