Pizarro shines as Chelsea steal points

Birmingham England - Claudio Pizarro grabbed the limelight from Nicolas Anelka on his first start for Chelsea by ending a 23-game wait for a goal with the strike that sunk Birmingham on Saturday.

The free-transfer from Bayern Munich in the summer has struggled to make any kind of impact at Stamford Bridge this season, his only previous goal having come on the opening day of the season, ironically against Birmingham.

But with Andriy Shevchenko suffering with a back injury, Didier Drogba on African Cup of Nations duty with the Ivory Coast and Anelka unable to break free of some resolute defending from Alex McLeish's side, Pizarro rescued Chelsea from a lacklustre performance 11 minutes from time to ease them to their fourth successive league win.

The Peruvian internationals wonderful headed goal, from Juliano Beletti's corner gave Chelsea a fortunate success, while at the same time highlighting the determined nature of Avram Grant's side.

Chelsea have now been beaten just once in their last 26 games and their capacity for winning when they do not play well suggests they can push Arsenal and Manchester United all the way this season.

Chelsea last lost a top flight fixture against Birmingham 33 years ago, but were strangely out of sorts, despite the obvious filip of Anelka making his full debut, following his 15 million-pound transfer from Bolton Wanderers.

And they were certainly fortunate to emerge with all three points as Birmingham continue to look for their first success over a team in the top half of the table this season.

After frustrating Arsenal last week, they did a similar job, but will look back on too many wasted opportunities as they continue to struggle to climb clear of the relegation issue.

The loss of England midfielder Shaun Wright-Phillips after only 29 minutes, the result of a twisted ankle, which could force him out of the midweek League Cup semi-final second leg against Everton did little to help their cause.

And they could easily have found themselves with a much more difficult task ahead of them, because of some lax play between Petr Cech and Brazilian defender Alex eight minutes before the interval, which almost gifted Birmingham a bizarre goal.

Cech was driven wide out of his goal by Alex's back pass, the goalkeeper's clearance was hit directly at Cameron Jerome on the edge of the 18-yard box and the striker's header towards an empty net bounced away off the far post.

James McFadden, Birmingham's five-million-pound signing from Everton was forced to wait for his opportunity from the substitutes bench and Alex redeemed himself moments later when more Birmingham pressure resulted in another opportunity for Jerome, but the striker's shot was blocked by the central defender on the line, with Cech again out of position.

Chelsea's own chances in the first half were limited, with Alex wasting the best of them, failing to connect properly with Florent Malouda's cross on the edge of the six-yard box and Anelka had to wait fully 67 minutes before he was presented with his first clear sight of Maik Taylor's goal.

A well orchestrated counter-attack was started by Joe Cole and Malouda found the perfect weight of pass on the edge of the area to find Anelka, left onside some ten-yards from goal, after Liam Ridgewell's decision to drop deep into his own box, but the French international could only produce a weak shot straight at the legs of Taylor.

McFadden was finally given his introduction in the 70th minute as part of a double substitution, along with Mikael Forssell, the former Chelsea striker and the Scottish international arrived just in time to see Taylor keep out a low, skidding shot from Malouda at the second attempt as Chelsea went through the gears.

The Scot's impact was almost instant, driving a low shot which Cech was happy to beat away at the near post, following Quedrue's quick thinking from a free kick.

Pizarro punished Birmingham's inability to take their chances when he flung himself on the edge of the six-yard box to head Beletti's corner beyond Taylor, despite the attempts of Swede Sebastian Larsson to clear on the line.