Middlesbrough suffered a set back to their Champions' League aspirations yesterday when they crashed at Birmingham City. Two first half goals were enough to secure all three points for the Blues but Steve McClaren's men could point to a controversial offside decision as the game's turning point.

Boro approached Boxing Day's game full of confidence after losing only one in 11 Premiership matches, and on the back of two convincing 3-0 victories over Partizan Belgrade and Blues' rivals Aston Villa - but then so did Birmingham. The Midlands' side came through a recent sticky patch to record back to back victories against Villa and West Brom.

But after Emile Heskey added to Clinton Morrison's tenth minute opener on the stroke of half-time, the Teessiders' first victory at St Andrews since 1978 looked as likely as Prince Charles becoming a Kwik-Fit fitter.

There was an improvement in the second half when McClaren threw caution to the wind and introduced Szilard Nemeth for the ineffective Doriva, but with several players not at their best, Boro can have no complaints about the result.

David Dunn and Heskey in particular ran the visitors ragged in the first period before hamstring injuries robbed the game of their skill and endeavour, and both skipper Gareth Southgate and Michael Reiziger had games they would want to forget in a hurry.

The Teessiders made three changes to the side that beat Villa last week. Franck Queudrue replaced Tony McMahon, who dropped to the bench, Doriva came in for the injured George Boateng and likewise, Colin Cooper replaced Chris Riggott.

Boro thought they had got off to a dream start when after only three minutes Stan Lazaridis deflected Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink's shot past Birmingham goalkeeper Maik Taylor from five yards. Unfortunately for Boro, the referee blew for offside on the assistant referee's flag when Mark Viduka wandered into the home box, much to the visitor's annoyance. The decision seemed harsh on first viewing but TV replays proved Viduka was offside, despite not interfering with play.

The visitors suffered further misery seven minutes later when Morrison opened the scoring for the home side when he latched on to Heskey's flick from Taylor's free kick to crash the ball past Mark Schwarzer.

Hasselbaink nearly levelled five minutes before the break when he nipped in front of Upson only to see his snap shot from Ray Parlour's whipped cross crash against the advertising hoardings.

Birmingham increased their lead on the stroke of half-time, however, when Darren Carter took a quick corner to Savage on the edge of the 18 yard box, and his whipped cross found the head of Heskey in front of Queudrue and Cooper.

There was little in terms of thrills and spills in the second period despite the game opening up, but had Stewart Downing made the most of Hasselbaink's slide-rule pass, five minutes from the end, it would have made the game very interesting in the closing stages.

The result means little to Boro's position in the Premiership as they still remain fifth, but the defeat sends them five points adrift of fourth placed Manchester United.

Since McClaren was installed as Boro boss three-and-a-half year's ago his brief was to stabilise the Teessiders' fortunes and turn them from Premiership yo-yo club to trophy winning European force. The former Manchester United assistant manager has delivered all three tasks within three years on Teesside and is still looking to go one stage further by playing against Europe's aristocracy in the Champions League next season.

McClaren's team has played some attractive football in his time in charge. He built his squad on solid defensive foundations and they rarely concede many goals, but have always lacked a cutting edge to be considered as a serious threat to a place in either the UEFA Cup or the Champions League.

This season, however, the Middlesbrough boss addressed that problem with the signings of Hasselbaink and Viduka. The consequence of those signatures means only Chelsea and Arsenal have scored more goals than the Teesside club.

The Boro attack found that their knives were a little blunted against a hard-working Birmingham defence and a reoccurrence of a hamstring to Viduka did not help the procedings.

But the Boro fans need not despair because every now and then your knives do need a quick sharpen and that could come at the expense of strugglers Norwich City tomorrow.

Result: Birmingham City 2 Middlesbrough 0.

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