Birmingham City 0-2 Blackburn Rovers: Adam Armstrong and Bradley Dack score for Rovers
- Published
Adam Armstrong is the joint top scorer in the Championship this season with 16 goals in 22 games
Adam Armstrong was on target as Championship top scorers Blackburn Rovers beat out-of-form Birmingham City at St Andrew's.
Armstrong netted his 17th goal of the season, rounding off a superb counter-attack in the 10th minute.
Rovers midfielder Bradley Dack ensured all three points with a curling effort after 92 minutes.
Blackburn rise to 11th, five points off the play-offs, while defeat means Birmingham are just four points above the drop, having not scored a goal in their past four fixtures.
Both sides came into the game hoping the new year would kick-start a turn of form - Birmingham were winless in five and Blackburn had lost four of their past six.
The hosts will feel aggrieved not to have been awarded a penalty when Ivan Sanchez was brought down in the area. Seconds later, Armstrong side-footed Rovers in front.
Former Newcastle forward Armstrong and Liverpool loanee Harvey Elliott both tested Neil Etheridge in the Blues goal with first-half efforts.
Birmingham's Lukas Jutkiewicz and Jonathan Leko went close to levellers either side of the break, with Jutkiewicz denied by keeper Thomas Kaminski from range and Leko curling narrowly wide.
But City struggled to create chances late on as Dack scored on the break, his first goal since November 2019.
Birmingham City boss Aitor Karanka told BBC WM 95.6:
"It was an improvement from us but it wasn't an improvement from the referees, and once again if you look at the penalties we didn't have, it's amazing.
"I left the pitch thinking our penalty [shout] before the goal was a clear penalty. It's difficult to win games in this league when we are suffering penalties and those same [decisions] go against us.
"I don't know who's behind it but it's a lack of respect towards this football club because every week it's the same story. Always the same, when we're not making the mistakes the referees are making mistakes and those decisions are punishing us."
Blackburn Rovers manager Tony Mowbray told BBC Radio Lancashire:
"I thought we started pretty sharp. Their keeper made two or three really good saves, it could have been three or four at half-time.
"Yes we won 2-0 and kept the clean sheet, but we didn't really function today. The positive is the result. My analyst told me that we only had two shots in the second half - that's not like us.
"We've played so much better but have lost games. But we'll take the points, get on the bus and go home."