Birmingham shared the spoils with Wigan in a 1-1 draw in their final home Sky Bet Championship game of the season at St Andrew’s.
Birmingham, who had been looking to do the double over Wigan, failed to capitalise upon a bright start after Lukas Jutkiewicz had opened their account in the first attack of the game.
A rejuvenated Wigan, who scored an impressive 2-1 away win over promotion-seeking Leeds in their previous game, produced another fine performance with Nick Powell equalising in the last minute of the first half.
Everything had appeared rosy for Birmingham when Jutkiewicz quickly celebrated being appointed Birmingham’s captain for the last home game of the season in the absence of Michael Morrison by scoring the opening goal in only 90 seconds.
A seemingly harmless long ball by Gary Gardner into Wigan’s penalty area resulted in a terrible mix-up between visiting captain Jonas Olsson and his goalkeeper Jamie Cook.
Olsson gestured for Jones to collect the ball but the keeper hesitated and Jutkiewicz managed to make contact with an outstretched leg to steer his shot through the legs of the embarrassed goalkeeper and into the net to record his 14th league goal of the season.
Wigan made strenuous efforts to repair the damage in the gale force winds and conspired to trouble Birmingham’s defence in the adverse weather conditions.
Several times they went close to an equaliser with Powell producing an angled shot from the left which beat goalkeeper Lee Camp, went across the face of the goal, and out of play and Joe Garner had a glancing header hit the post.
Garner had another opportunity but failed to make a clean contact to Antonee Robinson’s cross and screwed his effort past the post.
Wigan’s spirited performance was hardly that of a side who had struggled for Championship survival. With Josh Windass showing some fine form Wigan matched Birmingham with their attacking commitment.
This was demonstrated in the 35th minute when the persistent Garner cleverly created space for himself to fire into a seemingly empty net only for Wes Harding to appear from nowhere to make a goalline clearance.
Birmingham’s attempt to increase their lead was in the main restricted to long-range efforts from Che Adams which were easily dealt with by Jones.
Wigan levelled in the last minute of the first half following a stumble by Birmingham’s Jota which allowed Robinson to gain possession and advance down the left before producing a squared pass into the path of Powell to equalise with a long-range deflected shot.
Birmingham attempted to lift their game in the second period but Wigan ominously always appeared dangerous with the kind of form which belied their earlier fight against relegation.
