Blackburn Rovers 4-2 Birmingham City: Sammie Szmodics scores twice in home win
- Published
- comments
Sammie Szmodics signed a new contract with Blackburn Rovers on Tuesday
Sammie Szmodics celebrated signing a new contract by helping Blackburn Rovers to victory against a resilient Birmingham City in an end-to-end Championship fixture at Ewood Park.
The Championship's leading scorer, who on Tuesday committed his future to Rovers until the end of the 2025-26 season, took his tally this season to 13 goals with a double strike during a white-hot second half in the Lancashire cold.
The hosts were seemingly cruising to a win with three goals in 12 second-half minutes, before Wayne Rooney's Blues replied twice thanks to Siriki Dembele - only to see any hopes of completing a comeback dashed by Blackburn's fourth, scored by Harry Leonard in stoppage time.
Szmodics opened the scoring with a lovely finish in the 47th minute, before he added a second with a near-identical strike just five minutes later.
James Hill scored the hosts' third, a goal that owed so much to John Ruddy's mistake, before Dembele restored some pride for the visitors.
Dembele capped a productive performance with his second in the 77th minute, but it was not enough as Leonard wrapped up the three points.
Yet the final flurry was a world away from a goalless opening 45 minutes.
Tyrhys Dolan went close for the hosts early on, his stinging effort being beaten away by Ruddy, but it was to be the striker's final meaningful contribution to the game as injury ended his night early just a few minutes later.
Blues were almost rewarded when Dembele offered a glimpse into what was to come, when he wriggled free of his marker and drove an angled left-footed shot against Rovers' crossbar.
Blackburn were quickest to react after the break, taking the initiative when Szmodics ran onto Adam Wharton's pass, drifted past the last defender and lofted a lovely chip over the stranded Ruddy.
It got worse for the visitors when Szmodics quickly increased the lead. A multi-pass move was completed by Leonard's ball into Szmodics' path and Ruddy raced out once more, only for the in-form Rovers man to dink his shot over the Birmingham goalkeeper and into the bottom right-hand corner of the empty net.
As Birmingham struggled to contain another attacking wave, the ball fell for Hill, whose 20-yard shot that was more speculative that powerful slipped underneath Ruddy.
And yet it was far from game over. Dembele curled in a beautiful shot in the 63rd minute to give the visitors a much-needed lift, and the fightback seemed on when Dembele added Birmingham's second 13 minutes from the end.
But Jon Dahl Tomasson's Rovers held on to secure the victory, sealing the three points in the final throes when Arnor Sigurdsson delivered a pass to Andrew Moran, who found Leonard in space and he coolly slotted his shot into the bottom corner.
Blackburn manager Jon Dahl Tomasson told BBC Radio Lancashire:
"I am pleased with the win - the second win in a short while.
"Our performance was mixed. We started well for the first 10-15 minutes, and after Dolan went off injured it became an open game without being a great football game.
"At half-time we spoke about being quicker, playing forward, making runs behind and in the first 15-20 minutes the goals we scored were brilliant.
"Normally at 3-0 you've done enough to win the game but we gave two unnecessary goals away and made it tough. But we saw the togetherness, the spirit and it was great to see the fourth goal."
Birmingham manager Wayne Rooney told BBC Radio WM:
"The goals were very poor from our point of view. For large portions of the game we were very good and caused Blackburn many problems, but the goals were schoolboy [errors].
"I take responsibility for that but we as defenders, goalkeeper and midfielders need to get better. We can't allow teams to score goals like that.
"I said to the players at half-time that we quietened their crowd and not to give them momentum and encouragement, but we did the opposite and it cost us the game.
"It's hard to take defeat after such a positive performance. We kept going and it felt like we might get the equalising goal. I'm pleased with our reaction, but not happy at all with the goals we've conceded."