Phil Neumann goal gives Birmingham victory at Preston

Phil Neumann’s first-half header earned Birmingham their first win in five matches, with a 1-0 victory over Preston in the Sky Bet Championship.

The 28-year-old planted home Alexander Cochrane’s dead-ball in the 33rd minute and the visitors held on against a Preston team with only one defeat in their last eight games.

It marked North End’s first home defeat in the league this season but they had enough chances to get something more out of a hard-fought encounter.

In the opening stages, within a minute of each other, both Keshi Anderson and Andrija Vukcevic nearly bagged the opener with two crossed deliveries that inadvertently forced Daniel Iversen and James Beadle into some awkward positional adjustments.

Preston had the first decent chance of note through Michael Smith, whose 15th-minute header from Ben Whiteman’s corner had to be cleared off the line by Christoph Klarer.

Smith again had another headed chance later on after good work from Odel Offiah and Jordan Storey but the target-man headed over under pressure.

But Birmingham made the decisive breakthrough just after the half-hour mark as Neumann got ahead of his marker to head Cochrane’s deep free-kick past Iversen at his near post.

It was nearly a quickfire second for the visitors as Jay Stansfield raced clear and squared the ball for Lewis Koumas, taking Iversen out of the equation, but Lewis Gibson reacted brilliantly to block the shot.

Preston nearly equalised in the 42nd minute as Jordan Storey latched onto another Whiteman cross, but Beadle made the save comfortably.

Shortly after, all-action Whiteman made Beadle work again with a strike from outside the box.

After a quiet start to the second half, Stansfield nearly netted on the hour with an enticing bending shot from just outside the box and Birmingham’s record signing went closer just a few minutes later, seeing his goalbound header from a corner in a crowded penalty area crash off the post.

Beadle had been solid throughout but, in the 69th minute, he was caught in no-man’s-land by Milutin Osmajic, who skipped past the City stopper but was denied on an angle by Neumann.

Substitute Demarai Gray showed a glimpse of his top-level class six minutes later, neatly taking a bouncing ball in his stride, but he dragged wide from inside the box with a swivelled finish.

Fellow substitute Thierry Small went even closer just moments later, drilling a low cross-cum-shot across the box with a deflection taking it agonisingly wide of the post after Birmingham made a mess of clearing their lines from Whiteman’s low cross.

Smith and Lewis Dobbin, who came on for Andrew Hughes, both sent late shots at Beadle but the Blues held on for the victory.