Birmingham City 1-0 Blackburn Rovers

Birmingham City stretched their unbeaten run to seven Championship games with a home win over Blackburn.

After spurning two good opportunities, Stephen Gleeson fired the only goal of the game, finding the top corner from David Cotterill's neat ball.

Cotterill hit the post as the hosts looked for a second, while Blackburn's best chance saw Tommie Hoban fire over from Craig Conway's free-kick.

Defeat keeps Blackburn in the bottom three while Birmingham are up to sixth.

Rovers, who have conceded in all 11 of their league games so far, pushed for a late equaliser but goalkeeper Jason Steele - up for a last-gasp corner - could not quite reach Sam Gallagher's squared header.

Birmingham's Che Adams shot just wide and Jacques Maghoma inadvertently blocked Jonathan Grounds' far-post header as the hosts edged the first half.

Marvin Emnes' brilliant shot for Rovers was saved by Adam Legzdins before Gleeson opened the scoring with a neat finish and it could have been 2-0 but Jonathan Spector fired over from close range.

Blackburn, who have now won just two of their past 12 games in all competitions, pushed forward in stoppage time but it was too little, too late.

Birmingham City manager Gary Rowett told BBC WM:

"You can play against teams near the bottom who can turn you over. We have to be mindful of these teams.

"We caused them problems but they caused us one or two. Our second half was better.

"We tend to start slowly but get stronger and that is testament to our experience and game management.

"The key moment for me was early in the second half when Adam Legzdins made a fantastic save from Marvin Emnes. It was a crucial save and we went away to score the winner."

Blackburn manager Owen Coyle:

"It was a hard-fought game. The margins were very fine.

"We could have picked up a point. If we had scored the first goal it could have been different as we had a couple of opportunities to score.

"The disappointment was that we were in possession before they scored the goal. Saying that, it was a wonderful finish from Gleeson.

"From our point of view it was avoidable as there were enough bodies around. It made it difficult because we had to make substitutions because of injuries."