Leeds unbeaten run ended and they suffered their second defeat of the season at home, however the fans were left puzzling a series of decisions by Neil Warnock who predictably called for reinforcements.

The first was the decision to drop Adam Drury at left-back and bring Danny Pugh in from the cold. Warnock also left it until 82 minutes to make a change and why, after his encouraging performance against Forest was the pacey Dominic Poleon allowed to move to Bury?

Whisper it, Poleon scored for the Shakers whilst Leeds struggled to find the net again.

The game was played out in bright sunshine. As these are troubled times for football, I noted that the Birmingham fans arrived in a convoy of coaches which sped down Lowfields Road and lurched left. The club also took the extra step of closing off the West Stand car-park after the game so our guests could pass peacefully back to the Midlands.

Unfortunately all the extra security could not stop an idiot launching a bottle in the direction of El Hadji Diouf, who typically shrugged it off as well as the taunts from the visitors. The Leeds fans had their own bogeyman in Marlon King, who spent a short loan spell here under Kevin Blackwell and took quite a bit of stick about his time in jail back in 2009/10.

I felt Leeds tried to at least knock the ball about a bit more than the long-ball dross we endured midweek against Charlton. However Birmingham had slightly more possession without really troubling Kenny.

The same could be said for our own attacking, although on 29 minutes Austin thundered home a long range drive which clipped Butland's leg en route to goal. Overall there was very little creative spark from midfield, Austin still looks to be carrying his troublesome ankle injury and the punishing schedule of playing for Brann during our summer and his international commitments. Byram struggled to make much impact on the game as he was denied the space to do so. It barely registered that Norris and Tonge were even on the pitch!

The second half saw Leeds push more, however it was scrappy and although Blues boss Lee Clark talked of "in yer face Neil Warnock teams" I thought our tempo was non existent and there seemed very little desire to try and exert any physical pressure on a rock solid Birmingham defence.

Becchio was totally outmuscled, Diouf seemed to drift left a lot and try and create some quality. There were lots of half decent crosses into the box but they were meat and drink to the blue shirted defence and Jack Butland.

Butland underlined his quality with a stunning one-handed save from Diouf in the 70th minute, like Diouf the young team GB keeper could escape these turgid Championship encounters come the January transfer-window.

Butland's heroics tipped the balance in the Blues favour and on 76 they broke and took the lead, a clever dummy from Marlon King allowed Leroy Lita to smash a stunning 30 yard drive past Kenny for the winner.

For the second time inside a week, the ex Sheffield United keeper was beaten from long-range, however post match Warnock lay the blame on his defenders backing off and also revealed with a touch of irony that Leeds enquired about loaning Lita from Swansea but he had already agreed to move to St Andrews.

Warnock waited until just eight minutes from the end before injecting some pace into his flagging side, giving Ryan Hall his debut in the right and putting Aidy White on the left. There was no way back from Leeds and it seemed the more likely outcome would be for Birmingham to extend their lead, particularly when King thundered a terrific drive onto Kenny's crossbar.

In the end our luck was bound to run out, on this evidence Warnock has simply replaced the set of mediocre players he inherited from Simon Grayson with more mediocre players. It is also another worrying sign that the usually hyperactive Leeds boss now cuts a subdued figure on the touch line.

Perhaps like us and those who again stayed away, the crowd of 22,152 admittedly was a slight improvement on Tuesday night, he too has had enough of the off-field management of the club and despite questioning his tactics and the decision to loan Poleon to his old mate Blackie, can you really blame him?

Photo: Action Images

Leeds United Polls