Bosun Lawal's first-half goal was his first in a total of 15 appearances for Stoke
Defender Bosun Lawal's looping first-half header was enough to earn Stoke City victory over Birmingham City and secure a fourth win in five Championship games this season.
Lawal leapt impressively at the far post and sent his header back into the side netting past a scrambling Ryan Allsop, who was unable to claw it away under pressure.
The Potters created little after that, although Sorba Thomas smashed an effort against the post before the break.
But Blues, who have now lost back-to-back league games and three in a row in all competitions, looked equally unlikely to score, failing to register a single attempt on target at the bet365 Stadium.
Lawal's first goal for Stoke, from a well-flighted Thomas corner, brought a deserved interval lead.
And although the hosts failed to build on a front-foot first-half performance, they were able to hold off an improved Blues display to see out victory.
Stoke could have been further ahead before the turnaround, Lawal testing Allsop from another corner and on-loan Manchester City striker Divin Mubama forcing the Birmingham keeper into a decent save down to his right.
Allsop's counterpart Viktor Johansson almost laid on a second for the hosts, but Thomas crashed his attempt into the near post after being put in the clear by the keeper's long punt forward.
Blues had offered very little in attack but started to threaten, with a goalmouth melee causing some anxious moments in the home defence and a Jay Stansfield shot that was blocked.
The second half brought more urgency from the visitors and saw them control possession and territory, but they failed to trouble Johansson despite several promising situations.
Stoke had no noteworthy opportunities but defended impressively, with match-winner Lawal's aerial presence a significant reason for the clean sheet.
'We were outstanding' - reaction
Robins: ‘I thought we were brilliant’
Potters boss Mark Robins told BBC Radio Stoke:
"I thought we were really good – it was brilliant, inside the stadium it was really noisy. I thought we started off really well, high intensity, and I thought we carried that through, particularly in the first half, I thought we were outstanding.
"In the second half, things changed a little bit. Turnover of possession was a little bit more frequent, but that was when both sides start to tire, they made plenty of changes, we made a few changes – we made some wrong decisions at times.
"The only criticism I've got is we get the ball around the edge of their penalty area, we break away and we are doing that to create the space to shoot and we don't – we turn it down. It becomes very frustrating, we can shoot, we've got players who can score goals. Move the ball, find the space, shoot.
"We could have had another goal, maybe two, we've been a bit unfortunate but we have to be more ruthless there to take the game away from them – (but) really pleasing with the clean sheet and the noise inside the stadium was incredible."
Davies: 'We were very soft'
Birmingham boss Chris Davies told BBC Radio WM:
"You expect it to be a tough start here and we weren't good enough in the first 20 minutes or half an hour and it cost us the game.
"Very rarely have I seen us as passive and soft as that in the opening periods of a game - there weren't enough blue shirts winning second balls and in the duels.
"It was all us in the second half without turning that possession and dominance into meaningful chances.
"It's not a surprise to me how tough the Championship [is] but we have to make sure we don't lose too much heart from it and learn."
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