An American flag flies high above the main stand at St Andrew’s but the owners’ big dream for Birmingham was anything but a battle against relegation to League One. At the start of the week they turned to Tony Mowbray, who cancelled a new-year trip to New York to succeed Wayne Rooney, whose appointment proved, as widely predicted, a grave and giddy misstep.
It is a well-told story but when Birmingham sacked John Eustace in October they were sixth in the Championship. Fast-forward three months and they could be forgiven for peering below given they are seven points above the relegation zone, with two wins from their past 16 league games.
If there have been any redeeming features from the past few months then the continued emergence of the Wales teenager Jordan James is surely near the top of the list. The 19-year-old struck a superb long-distance equaliser five minutes into eight minutes of stoppage time to prevent Jamal Lowe’s close-range strike from being the winning goal. James, part of a second-half triple substitution, sent a thunderbolt of a right-foot strike arrowing into the bottom corner.
Bolton were denied the chance to take over at the summit after leaders Portsmouth were stunned at home to Leyton Orient.
Orient ran out 3-0 winners after a scintillating first-half at Fratton Park where Shaq Forde, Jordan Brown and Daniel Ageyi were on target.
Sol Brynn also saved Colby Bishop's 40th-minute penalty to compound a miserable afternoon for John Mousinho's team.
Peterborough moved up to second after a brace by Ephron Mason-Clark earned a 2-1 victory away to Charlton. Mason-Clark broke the deadlock and although Alfie May levelled for the hosts, the Posh number 10 claimed all three points with a fine low finish, 15 minutes from time.
Mark Harris' double earned fifth-placed Oxford a 3-1 win at Carlisle with Tyler Goodrham also in the goals for Des Buckingham's promotion-chasing side.
Barnsley edged out Bristol Rovers by a 2-1 score after Devante Cole and Corey O'Keeffe found the net to stay ahead of Stevenage, who remain seventh despite a 1-0 victory at Shrewsbury thanks to Jamie Reid's 84th-minute effort.
Fleetwood stay bottom after a 2-1 loss at Cambridge where Sullay Kaikai struck a last-minute winner.
Elsewhere, Albie Morgan scored twice to earn Blackpool a 2-0 win over Exeter as Northampton and Wigan played out a 1-1 draw at Sixfields.
Lincoln earned a point at Wycombe after Ethan Erhahon grabbed an equaliser in the eighth minute of stoppage time.
James, one of the most exciting youngsters outside the Premier League, is of interest to the Serie A side Atalanta and Mowbray conceded the midfielder may not be at the club at the end of the transfer window. “It’s a journey, isn’t it?” he said. “There’s a long way to go. I’ve had three-and-a-half days on the training pitch. I can see what needs to be fixed. We have to play forward more, stop going back and across; I don’t like teams who horseshoe around the back, when it’s all a bit slow. When we get it forward, we have quality.”
The LED boards here have been working overtime of late, proudly announcing Mowbray as the new sheriff in town, the trumpeting of Rooney’s supposedly significant arrival still fresh in the memory. It was Rooney-mania for a while, wall-to-wall coverage around the place; there were funky graphics, journalists were given Rooney lanyards at his unveiling and Garry Cook, the chief executive who drove his appointment, acknowledged the unprecedented media interest, before name-checking Manchester City and Newcastle as examples of how quickly clubs can click through the gears. Not so fast.
Swansea, too, are playing catch-up, with this, like Mowbray, Luke Williams’s first league game in charge after the 43-year-old returned to the club where he previously worked as an assistant to Russell Martin, before carving out a burgeoning reputation at Notts County.
“If myself or Tony had arrived at a club because the head coach had done incredibly and got headhunted it would maybe be a case of ‘let’s not change anything’, but we have both arrived in similar circumstances,” Williams said. “We’re both coming in to do something new and with something new, of course, comes some problems.”
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Birmingham were the more vibrant before Swansea took the lead through a Harry Darling header, the defender rising unchallenged to power in an out-swinging Josh Tymon corner on 36 minutes. Swansea’s lead lasted less than two minutes, with Siriki Dembélé charging down the left before caressing a right-foot shot into the far corner of the Brighton loanee Carl Rushworth’s goal.
Darling, again unmarked, sent a booming header against the crossbar and then John Ruddy denied Lowe from a tight angle. Lowe was perfectly placed to beat Dion Sanderson to Tymon’s cross and divert the ball past Ruddy to lift Swansea, but James would have the final say.
“We make a classic mistake of trying to defend the lead out,” Williams said. “We should have attacked more after going in front. Sometimes that can be the best tool to defend.”
