Queudrue's sweet strike gives Boro just deserts

Middlesbrough 1 Birmingham City

Birmingham's best unbeaten run in top-flight football for 26 years came to an end as, despite their tireless efforts, they lacked the spark of inspiration to open up an organised Middlesbrough and make it five games without defeat.

Indeed, for all their manful pressing, the margin of their defeat should have been much, much greater as in the dying minutes alone, Alen Boksic missed two glorious chances and Frank Queudrue's effort with the final kick of the game curled away from the post at the very last moment.

For Middlesbrough, those wasted chances summed up their game. They have a surprising degree of skill sprinkled throughout their squad, and at times yesterday their passing was so slick it threatened to cut Birmingham to the quick. But at the moment when their skill needed to be at its sharpest they let themselves down.

Boksic's first golden opportunity, in the 80th minute, was perhaps the best example. It was created delightfully. Jonathan Greening, in front of the dug-out and under immense pressure from an opponent and his screaming manager, impudently back-heeled a volley into the path of Queudrue. He moved it on quickly to Massimo Maccarone who, with a clever change of direction, sucked players towards him and left Boksic running free. His pass to the Croatian was perfect, but Boksic dribbled the ball just wide of the post. "I'm disappointed we only scored one goal because it is never enough,'' said his manager, Steve McClaren. "The game should have been out of sight, but credit Birmingham: they never stopped coming at us.''

In the first half, Joseph-Désiré Job and Szilard Nemeth were skilful but it took them half an hour to harm Birmingham. Darren Purse fouled Nemeth five yards outside the penalty area when the Slovakian threatened to show him a clean pair of heels. Purse was booked and, left-footed from the free-kick, the floppy-haired Frenchman Queudrue curled the ball exquisitely into the top corner of the net.

Birmingham's manager, Steve Bruce, said: "It was a marvellous goal from 25 yards and we needed something like that to break for us when we had our spell. We are disappointed not to be going down the road with our unbeaten run intact.''

It nearly broke for them within 10 minutes. Robbie Savage, just booked, surprisingly reached Damien Johnson's cross and, having got in front of Colin Cooper, Clinton Morrison should have done better than hook the ball wide. But in the second half, all Birmingham had to show for their attempts to equalise was a shot from substitute Jovan Kirovski which was parried at full stretch by Mark Schwarzer. That aside, Middlesbrough, without their two lynchpins of Gareth Southgate and George Boateng, were not seriously bothered.

By the time of Kirovski's efforts, Boksic had replaced the deceptively skilful Nemeth. It took just seven minutes for the Croatian to be cautioned – the eighth name in the over-fussy Andy D'Urso's book – and within 10 minutes he had the first of his many chances that should have put the game beyond the battlers of Birmingham.