Birmingham City 0-0 Manchester City

Ireland's Shay Given was Manchester City's hero as the goalkeeper produced several fine saves to earn Mark Hughes's men a point in their goalless Premier League draw away to Birmingham City.

Sunday's stalemate at St Andrews was enlivened by an impressive display from Given, including a penalty save from Scotland's James McFadden.

Manchester City's fourth straight draw was good enough to take the visitors into fourth place in the table.

The home side had a gilt-edged opportunity to take the lead in the 55th minute after Nigel de Jong handled in the box.

But the resulting penalty saw McFadden strike a weak shot which wasn't far enough away from Given and the goalkeeper, diving to his left, made a two-handed save.

'It was a bit of luck I suppose,' Given told Sky Sports. 'It's a bit of a lottery, penalties, for goalkeepers, and luckily today I've gone the right way and got a strong enough hand to get it away.'

The penalty was the first awarded against City this season and Given joked: 'I hope it's the last as well!

'It probably was a penalty looking back, I think Nigel's hand was a bit high and it was the right decision from the referee,' the former Newcastle goalkeeper added.

'Luckily for us we've managed to keep it out and we've kept a clean sheet. I think we can play better than we did today and we'll take a point.'

However, he said Hughes's expensively-assembled side had bigger ambitions.

'We're disappointed, these are games where we're looking to pick up three points.

'Credit to Birmingham, they had good spirit today and a good workrate in their team.

'But we were coming here today looking for three points, and the same against Fulham last week when we threw away a two-goal lead, so we've been disappointed in the last couple of weeks.'

Birmingham's disappointment at seeing McFadden miss was made worse when Blues midfielder Barry Ferguson was sent off in injury-time for his second bookable offence after trying to stop Manchester City taking a quick throw.

Asked if Ferguson, already on a yellow card, should have known better, Birmingham manager Alex McLeish replied: 'He should. He's apologised to myself and his team-mates in there.

'We lose him next week. That's disappointing, because he's been exceptional and made us play,' McLeish said of the former Rangers and Scotland star.

'We cannot afford the discipline throughout the season, especially with such a fragile squad, to go awry at any stage.

A draw took Birmingham three points clear of the relegation zone and McLeish added: 'We are disappointed not to have got the three points and that's a measure of how well we've played.

'We just lacked that bit of composure in front of goal.'

Christian Benitez hit a post early on for Birmingham before Manchester City and Wales striker Craig Bellamy had a shot blocked.