Lee Bowyer off as Hammers toil

WATCHING this game, with its plethora of unforced errors, Fabio Capello could only have been confirmed in his reportedly low opinion of the technique of the players from whom he must choose.

True, Matthew Upson, who used to play for Birmingham City and had a capable game for England at Wembley on Wednesday, was a notable exception. But even he, his manager Alan Curbishley believed, might have been feeling the effects of the international.

Curbishley, in mitigation, also pointed out that his right-back, Lucas Neill, had arrived from playing for Australia only at 7am yesterday and Mark Noble, who was at least expected to be on the bench, was "feeling his hamstring" during the warm-up having played for England Under21s during the week, and was kept out of the game.

Not that any of these considerations could excuse such a patchy performance from either side. The game was blemished in the 88th minute when Mark Clattenburg sent off Lee Bowyer for an overly robust challenge on Damien Johnson. Give a dog a bad name? Certainly it appeared before Bowyer's challenge that Hayden Mullins had made a far more drastic one, but it was at Bowyer, so often expelled in the past, that Mr Clattenburg flourished his red card.

Curbishley said he thought and hoped the referee would look at the incident again. "I didn't think it was that serious, but obviously the referee is on the spot and sees it a little bit differently," he said.

Curbishley felt his team had played well in the first half but hadn't seemed likely to score in the second.

The early exchanges did, indeed, suggest that the Hammers would win at a canter. In the seventh minute they went ahead when a huge throw in from the left by full-back George McCartney was flicked on by Carlton Cole and touched in at full stretch on the far post by Freddie Ljungberg, his first goal for the club.

In the second half, Curbishley ultimately moved Ljungberg off the wing and into central mid-field because he felt the game was getting away from his team. But to the outsider the crucial factor was the excellent, ever resilient goalkeeping of Birmingham's Maik Taylor.

After 16 minutes a Birmingham goal came as something of an anticlimax. The Birmingham manager Alex McLeish praised his Scotland international James McFadden for the way he slipped through the West Ham defence for the penalty award, when, in Mr Clattenburg's view, he was pulled back by Neill. McFadden sidefooted the spot kick in to the left corner.

"The penalty was real soft," Curbishley complained. "I couldn't even see an arm around McFadden. I was really surprised when he gave it. I knocked us a little bit."

As for a relieved McLeish, he said: "I thought we had a lot of the ball in the first half. But we didn't make as much of the opportunities as we would have liked. In the second half we were more fleeting."

Thanks as much to defensive inadequacy as attacking virtuosity, chance followed chance at either end. The minute before McFadden's equaliser, a lob by Mullins found Cole, who shot just wide. On 29 minutes Matthew Etherington, lively on the left, sent in a cross that Bowyer met but Maik Taylor saved.

Six minutes more and Mikael Forssell, for the first but not the last time, wasted a good opportunity. McFadden crossed, but the Finnish striker's header went straight into the arms of Robert Green.

On 38 minutes West Ham created their most impressive move of the game. Four passes between four players ultimately found Etherington, but Maik Taylor turned his shot wide.

Point, counterpoint. The very next minute McFadden, seemingly to his own surprise, found himself all alone not far from goal. But his first touch was atypically poor as West Ham scrambled the ball away for a corner.

The second half continued in the same error-ridden way. Dean Ashton, particularly, wasted chances. Upson came upfield to show his attackers how it might be done with a powerful header to Etherington's in-swinging free kick, but Maik Taylor dealt with that one too.

Then Gary McSheffrey made what seemed the clearest of chances for Forssell, but he squandered it, pulling his shot wide of the left-hand post.

So to the sending-off and a mediocre draw, though McLeish could at least console himself that salvation for what he called his very young team, might be in sight. "We're out of the bottom three this week," he said. "But it means nothing until May."

Match stats

Player ratings: West Ham: Green 7, Neill 6, Ferdinand 6, Upson 7, McCartney 6, Ljungberg 6, Mullins 6, Bowyer 6, Etherington 7 (Camara 83min), Cole 7 (Faubert 62min), Ashton 6 (Spector 90min)

Birmingham: Maik Taylor 8, Kelly 6, Martin Taylor 6, Ridgewell 6, Murphy 6, Larsson 6, Johnson 6, Muamba 6, McSheffrey 7 (Parnaby 87min), Forssell 6 (Jerome 76min), McFadden 7

Star man: Maik Taylor (Birmingham)

Scorers: West Ham: Ljungberg 7 Birmingham: McFadden 16 pen

Yellow cards: Birmingham: Johnson, McSheffrey, Muamba, Maik Taylor, Jerome.

Red card: West Ham: Bowyer

Referee: M Clattenburg

Attendance: 34,884