Birmingham City 2-0 Barnsley: Jutkiewicz & Gimenez give Blues victory

Goals from Lukas Jutkiewicz and Alvaro Gimenez gave Birmingham City a comfortable victory over Barnsley.

Gimenez scored his first goal for Pep Clotet's men soon after, superbly chipping Sami Radlinger in the visitors' net to double the hosts' lead.

It was just reward for Birmingham's domination of the game, in which Barnsley only managed one shot on target.

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The match sprang into life on the hour mark, with striker Jutkiewicz almost forcing Radlinger into an error on the edge of his penalty area.

The hosts' continued pressure finally paid off, as the ex-Burnley man headed in from close range to give them a deserved lead.

Spaniard Gimenez, making his second appearance for Blues, doubled the lead after calmly controlling a diagonal ball from Steve Seddon and calmly lobbing the visitors' goalkeeper.

The result gave Birmingham a second win of the season, while Daniel Stendel's Barnsley are seeking their first win since the opening day.

Birmingham City manager Pep Clotet told BBC WM:

"I think we had a very good game and I'm very happy for our players because they deserve huge credit for recovering from our last game (defeat to Nottingham Forest).

"We were very strong defensively, and very smart going forward, creating a lot of problems on set plays. We scored two nice goals and one thing I really enjoyed is the fact that we scored one goal and went for the second one. That's a huge step forward for us.

"I think all the fans enjoyed the outcome but also the performance. They saw the real Birmingham out there, we were tough to beat, caused a lot of problems offensively and were very incisive.

"A lot of players made their first appearances today, and we didn't get the time to gel during pre-season. But they played with a lot of confidence and discipline, and you see the team is slowly growing."

Barnsley manager Daniel Stendel told BBC Radio Sheffield:

"We are very disappointed, because we played a good away game. Birmingham had few chances, and although we didn't create many chances, we could have won the game.

"Like the last two games, we have played OK, and it's hard for our young team to play here, it's a difficult game, and I'm very frustrated.

"For 70 minutes we played well, and played better in the second half than Birmingham. The goal changed the match so much, and we need to learn so much from this, go on and try to win games.

"We became nervous after the first goal, lost our structure, and it's difficult to turn that around."