Phil Neumann's controversial first-half goal earned Birmingham their first win in five matches, sealing a 1-0 victory over Preston in the Sky Bet Championship.

The 28-year-old had glanced in in Alexander Cochrane's dead-ball delivery in the 33rd minute but replays appeared to show the ball hitting his his arm on the way through.

Referee Lewis Smith ignored the home team's complaints and the goal stood as Birmingham held on to beat a Preston side with only one defeat in their last eight games.

It marked North End's first home defeat in the league this season but they had enough chances to get something more out of a hard-fought encounter.

In the opening stages, within a minute of each other, both Keshi Anderson and Andrija Vukcevic nearly bagged the opener with two crossed deliveries that inadvertently forced Daniel Iversen and James Beadle into some awkward positional adjustments.

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Birmingham scored a very fortunate goal just before half time in their match against Preston.

Preston had the first decent chance of note through Michael Smith, whose 15th-minute header...