12.33PM ON SATURDAY AND Leeds United are heading for back-to-back wins for the first time this season. A line-up, unchanged for the third successive game, is striding towards a victory that would see them exit the bottom three for the first time since October. Four and a half hours later and they are five points adrift of seventeenth place. Morale boosted then bulldozed. How depressing that so soon after having licence to hope, Leeds find themselves scrabbling in an even deeper pit than before.

If there is hope for Leeds, it lies at home. Leicester City, Everton and Portsmouth have yet to visit Elland Road. Three wins, though, are unlikely to be enough; as well as being unlikely, full stop. And given the summer’s probable departures, would survival now merely be postponing relegation by a year? A 5-3 defeat away to Middlesbrough, coupled with Saturday’s outcome, suggests that Birmingham City are departing from the dour. Dazed and confused at the back for the first 20 minutes, they were quick, creative and entertaining going forward, as if the relationship between attacking flair and defensive solidity was a matter of either . . . or . . . If Steve Bruce can mould the two modes, next season his side should be formidable and fun.

“In the second half we defended like a Birmingham City team. That was the turning point,” Bruce, the manager, said. Equally it could be claimed that the key factor was that, after the break, the visiting side defended like a Leeds team. “I expected us to win,” Eddie Gray, the interim Leeds manager, said. “I had confidence in the players, the players were confident, they just made mistakes. We gave them the goals very cheaply.”

Leeds concede two goals per game on average. Only three times have they kept a clean sheet. Partly culpable for the first goal, when he came for Clinton Morrison’s cross and missed, little Paul Robinson did inspired confidence or suggested competence. He is a capable goalkeeper and a fine shot-stopper, but on Saturday Robinson demonstrated more flaps than a migrating flock of geese, and more insecurity than a roomful of hormonal teenagers with self-esteem issues.

It was understandable. Playing behind this back four for a season is the football equivalent of spending a year on death row, one long miasma of helplessness and inevitable doom. At least Robinson will earn a reprieve in the summer, when he should move to Tottenham Hotspur. Sven-Göran Eriksson has had one or two other matters on his mind in the past few days, but the England head coach must be praying that David James stays healthy. After such a brutal campaign, it is impossible to discount the danger that, if suddenly called into high- pressure action during the European Championship finals, Robinson might wobble.

A sly pass from Jermaine Pennant let Mark Viduka round Maik Taylor to give Leeds the advantage after only three minutes. He should then have made it 2-0 but shot into the side- netting. Bryan Hughes’s simple twelfth-minute goal levelled matters. Leeds then held out until midway through the second half, when lapses in central defence allowed Hughes a second. Soon afterwards, a long punt forward, for some reason, confused the Leeds back line and Mikael Forssell, the forward on loan from Chelsea, ran clear for the third. Hughes wanted to take a penalty — questionably awarded for a nudge by Stephen Caldwell on Morrison — but Bruce ordered his best attacker to take it. “If (Hughes had) missed it for sentimental reasons and they equalise, my arse gets kicked,” Bruce said.

Bruce may have been wiser to risk the midfield player from the spot. Leeds are not the only club likely to suffer the loss of a key striker in the summer. The more Forssell catches the eye, the less likely it is that he will be back at St Andrew’s next season. His penalty was the 23-year-old Finn’s sixteenth league goal of the season.“It’s no fluke, it can’t be with 30 games gone, that we’re where we are,” Bruce said. He should thank Forssell, and vice versa. “Nobody had really heard of Forssell until we brought him here — playing week in week out has worked for him,” Bruce said. “We’re doing everything we can but are powerless to act until Chelsea decide to sell him.”

Forssell remains blandly non-committal on the issue, refusing to look beyond the end of the season but, on this form, he will either force his way into the Chelsea line-up or attract advances from bigger clubs than Birmingham. As their gradual improvement continues, there seem to be fewer and fewer clubs in the Barclaycard Premiership fitting that description.

Birmingham City (4-4-2): Maik Taylor 5 — Martin Taylor 4, M Upson 4, K Cunningham 4, M Grainger 4 — D Johnson 6, S Clemence 6, B Hughes 7, S Lazaridis 7 — M Forssell 8 (sub: S John, 83min), C Morrison 6 (sub: O Tebily, 83). Substitutes not used: I Bennett, A Cissé, D Carter. NEXT: Fulham (a). FORM: WLLWWD

Leeds United (4-4-2): P Robinson 4 — G Kelly 4, S Caldwell 4, D Matteo 4, D Domi 5 — J Pennant 6, S McPhail 6, Seth Johnson 5, J Milner 6 (sub: Simon Johnson, 78) — A Smith 7, M Viduka 6. Substitutes not used: S Carson, I Harte, L Radebe, P Keegan. NEXT: Leicester City (h). FORM: LWLDDW

Shots on target: (h) 8 (a) 7. Fouls: (h) 11 (a) 18. Offsides: (h) 3 (a) 4

Referee: M Halsey 6. Attendance: 26,069