Birmingham City player ratings vs Huddersfield Town: Injury curse strikes twice on a costly afternoon at St Andrew's

Birmingham City were unable to interrupt Huddersfield Town's play-off charge on a costly afternoon at St Andrew's.

First half goals from Levi Colwill and Lewis O'Bren saw the Terriers extend their unbeaten run to 17 games in all competitions.

Although Blues stuck at it - and were able to give first team minutes to the returning Tahith Chong, everything that could have gone wrong before and during the first half did .

Lyle Taylor was injured in the warm-up, bringing Jordan James into the team - then in the 24th minute Maxime Colin went down and was replaced by Ivan Sunjic.

That forced Gary Gardner into central defence and left Blues with only one fit senior defender.

Predictably the reorganisation became disorganisation and Blues quickly shipped two goals.

First a Sorba Thomas corner flew to the back post where Terriers players were queuing up.

Colwill chested the ball into the middle and it seemed to ricochet off Gardner and into the net.

Huddersfield grabbed their second just before half time when Gardner failed to clear a ball over the top.

Under pressure from Thomas the captain could only slice the ball across his own area where O’Brien pounced Jeremie Bela and stroked past an unguarded Neil Etheridge.

The Blues goalkeeper also made several stops, saving from O’Brien at his near post and denying Jordan Rhodes when clean through.

Blues had a couple of pot shots from just inside the area from James and Onel Hernandez but didn’t test Lee Nicholls.

Lee Bowyer's team were better after the break although Town took their foot off the gas and sat in.

Ryan Woods came close to a first Blues goal with a sweet half volley which was deflected behind by Harry Toffolo.

Then Blues hit the woodwork twice in seven minutes.

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