Troy Deeney’s contribution to Birmingham highlighted by boss John Eustace

Posted Wednesday, November 09, 2022 by PA

Birmingham head coach John Eustace heaped praise on Troy Deeney after the captain’s late goal earned his side a 2-2 draw against Swansea at St Andrew’s.

The 34-year-old striker equalised in the 89th minute of the Sky Bet Championship contest when he thundered the ball home from close range after Dion Sanderson headed on Juninho Bacuna’s corner.

Blues led when the unmarked Scott Hogan glanced home Emmanuel Longelo’s cross in the 12th minute for his ninth goal of the season.

Swansea equalised against the run of play in the 30th minute when Olivier Ntcham curled a beautiful shot into the far bottom corner after Ryan Manning’s acutely-angled drive smacked off the post.

And the visitors led in the second minute of time added on at the end of the first half when the unmarked Matt Grimes swept home from 12 yards for his first league goal in 85 league games after Joel Latibeaudiere crossed.

Eustace said: “Troy has been excellent since day one. He is Mr Birmingham City and will go above and beyond for this club.

“He’s fantastic with the young players and the older players and with the community. We are very lucky to have Troy.”

Eustace was delighted with the application of his players, adding: “I’m delighted with the effort of the group. I thought we deserved a point with the character the boys showed.

“I thought we started the second half much better and deserved a point.

“You have to keep going. Did I think we’d run out of time? No.

“Swansea are an excellent, top team and for 25 minutes we were really good, then we lost our discipline with our shape for 10 minutes.

“If you do that against them, they will punish you. It was really bad defending from us for their first goal, although it was a fantastic strike.”

Swansea boss Russell Martin said after the late disappointment: “It hurts, it’s frustrating and it’s disappointing.

“We will get criticised because that’s something that has hit us this season but the players were brilliant for so long.

“It was always going to be a tough game as they’re in a great run of form and they’re a really athletic team.

“We started poorly, even though we had prepared the guys for it.

“We then scored two goals of brilliant quality – it was an incredible delivery for Matt Grimes’ goal from Joel Latibeaudiere’s cross. Our players are really early in their journey.”

Martin felt his team was hard done by, adding: “Birmingham had two shots on target and scored twice – Steven Benda didn’t have a save to make.

“We can’t keep conceding goals like that and we shouldn’t have conceded that goal at the end.

“We have conceded too many sloppy goals recently, but I can’t be too disappointed with the way we’re playing because how brave they are is amazing.”