Marvin Ducksch celebrating his goal against Sheffield Wednesday in Birmingham City's red away kitImage source, Getty Images
Image caption,

Marvin Ducksch has now scored three goals across his past three league games

Birmingham City picked up their first Championship away win since October with victory at bottom side Sheffield Wednesday.

Blues had failed to win any of their past eight league games on the road but late goals from summer signings Marvin Ducksch and Kyogo Furuhashi - on his 31st birthday - helped keep them in play-off contention.

Wednesday came close to opening the scoring when forward Bailey Cadamarteri struck the post.

But the hosts ran out of steam as Blues turned up the heat in the closing stages and got their reward as Ducksch tapped in the first seven minutes from time, before Kyogo followed up in added time for his first Championship goal.

While Wednesday remain with just a single victory all season, Birmingham still have ambitions of making the top six.

However, they will have to start picking up more points away from St Andrew's having only won twice on the road all season before their trip to Hillsborough.

Blues forward Jay Stansfield provided the only shot on target in the opening half, forcing a superb save from Wednesday keeper Murphy Cooper to deny his stinging strike.

The Owls struggled to threaten Blues keeper James Beadle, with skipper Barry Bannan squandering their best opportunity with an off-target curling strike.

Yan Valery then came to Wednesday's aid with a vital challenge as Lewis Koumas drove into the centre of the box.

The second half started positively for the hosts and they almost took the lead when Cadamarteri's low effort towards the bottom corner struck the post.

Cooper almost made a blunder as he stumbled backwards while collecting Tommy Doyle's shot, but the officials decided the ball had not crossed the line.

Cooper recovered well, providing a smart double save to keep out Tomoki Iwata's venomous hit before blocking out Ducksch on the follow-up.

However, Blues went into the ascendancy as the game edged towards its conclusion, seeing their sustained pressure count as Stansfield sliced a ball into Ducksch in front of goal to break the deadlock.

Kyogo then scored a beauty to make the game safe in added time with a low, sharp strike that gave Cooper no chance.

'We gave everything' - Sheff Wed reaction

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Pedersen: 'The best pressing game we've had'

Sheffield Wednesday boss Henrik Pedersen speaking to BBC Radio Sheffield:

"I think the boys gave everything. It doesn't matter if we should come 1-0 up or 1-0 down, we should just keep going and I think the boys did that to the end today.

"There was a much better reaction after the 1-0. We were on top of the game after the 1-0.

"One of things that was a theme before the first game was that we need to take bigger risks if we want to create more when we come high up on the pitch. So today were really aggressive in our pressing, the best pressing game we've had.

"Today we were a little bit better to keep the ball when we wanted and we were better to play with a more risk.

"We need to take more risk to create more and I thought the boys did that really well."

'Fully deserved it' - Blues reaction

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Davies: 'I thought we fully deserved it'

Birmingham City boss Chris Davies speaking to BBC Radio WM:

"I thought we fully deserved it with the chances that we had and it's nice to win a game away from home.

"The most important thing for me as a football manager is the fans. They do a lot of travelling and they support us as well as any team in the league away from home and it's just so nice for us all to give them that to go home with tonight.

"The speed of it wasn't quite there. We weren't actually pressing that well. We created a couple of moments from our possessions but I didn't think we were asserting ourselves on the press.

"I really like the way we started the second half. We seemed to assert ourselves on the game a lot quicker."

On Kyogo's first Championship goal: "It's his birthday today so we wished him a happy birthday before the game.

"He had a couple of chances before that and he's gone and taken probably the hardest one. Everyone is really pleased for Kyogo. You couldn't ask for a better professional, he gives his all every day."

Player of the match

Number: 9 K. Furuhashi
Average rating 7.51
Number: 13 M. Cooper
Average Rating: 6.58
Number: 10 B. Bannan
Average Rating: 5.48
Number: 24 J. Heskey
Average Rating: 5.36
Number: 27 R. Johnson
Average Rating: 5.19
Number: 18 B. Cadamarteri
Average Rating: 5.08
Number: 17 C. McNeill
Average Rating: 5.00
Number: 9 J. Lowe
Average Rating: 4.77
Number: 2 L. Palmer
Average Rating: 4.72
Number: 22 G. Otegbayo
Average Rating: 4.65
Number: 28 C. McGhee
Average Rating: 4.62
Number: 8 S. Ingelsson
Average Rating: 4.57
Number: 37 J. Thornton
Average Rating: 4.49
Number: 7 Y. Valery
Average Rating: 4.33
Number: 15 N. Redmond
Average Rating: 4.21

After the opportunity to rate players has closed, the score displayed represents the average from all the submissions by BBC Sport users.

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