As Kevin Nolan grafted in the Bolton Wanderers midfield on Saturday, he could not have imagined that he was influencing the chase for fourth place as well as the quest to finish fourth from bottom. With seven minutes left at St Andrew’s in Birmingham City’s match against Everton, the visiting side were going to go level on points with Liverpool and Bolton were about to move within one point of the home team. Then came an equaliser for Birmingham, scored by an Argentinian on loan from Al Sadd, of Qatar, with a backstage contribution from a less exotic environment: Bolton during the Sam Allardyce years.

Mauro Zárate curled a free kick into the top corner and Tim Howard stood still, positioned, oddly, right behind his wall. The Everton goalkeeper was distracted by Radhi Jaidi, the Birmingham defender, who waved his arms and made faces like a cheeky primary-school child.

“I saw the keeper was a bit frustrated and so I thought I could maybe affect his concentration,” Jaidi said. “It’s something we used to do at Bolton – Kevin Nolan did it all the time. I learnt it from him, I suppose. Nolan did it a lot and we scored a lot of goals from free kicks.”

Zárate’s shot was so accurate that Howard would probably not have saved it, but the goalkeeper believes that he was fouled. “I tried to draw the referee’s attention to what he was doing,” Howard said. “If you want my personal opinion, I don’t think the referees and linesmen in the Premier League are going to have enough gumption to disallow a goal on the basis of that. They probably should do. He’s in an offside position and he’s interfering with me, but that’s for the referee to make that call and I wouldn’t bet on them making that.

“He was in my line of sight. I suppose it’s ungentlemanly conduct in a way, but he got away with it. The guy who robs a bank, if you don’t catch him then he keeps the money.”

Birmingham did not pinch this point, though. They were the sparkier team in the second half in this battle of sides whose enthusiasm was easier to admire than the standard of their passing. While Alex McLeish was rightly pleased with Birmingham’s performance, Bolton and Fulham have gained ground and a rampant Aston Villa are his team’s next opponents.

Especially with a match against Chelsea coming up on Thursday, Everton can probably forget about finishing fourth. Here comes the cricket season and David Moyes’s team have reached their half-century already. This was their 50th game of the season, 13 more than Birmingham. “Maybe we’re just missing that little bit extra right now that we need to get results like a victory here,” Howard said.

Moyes said: “We were without Mikel Arteta and Leon Osman. And obviously we were without a goal-scorer in Tim Cahill, so they are big misses to any team. It’s really made it very difficult to see how we can put out a midfield which we feel will get us some form of result just now.”

At least there is a prolific defender in Joleon Lescott, who gave Everton the lead with a deft close-range header, his ninth goal of the season in all competitions. Only Yakubu Ayegbeni has scored more in the league for Everton than the defender.

“To get nine is fantastic. I’ve said to him that he should aim to get ten goals and if he does it will be a great return for a centre back,” Moyes said. “I just think that centre halves can do that: they come up for corners, they come up for free kicks, well, if they aren’t going to score then there’s not a great deal of point coming up. Fortunately, he does.”

How they rated

Birmingham City (4-4-2): Maik Taylor 7 S Kelly 6 R Jaidi 6 L Ridgewell 4 D Murphy 6 S Larsson 6 F Muamba 5 M Nafti Y 5 G McSheffrey 6 M Forssell 5 J McFadden 6 Substitutes: C Jerome 6 (for Larsson, 24min), G O’Connor 5 (for Forssell, 46), M Zárate (for McFadden, 76). Not used: C Doyle, F Queudrue. Next: Aston Villa (a).

Everton (4-4-2): T Howard 7 A Hibbert 6 P Jagielka 6 J Lescott 7 L Baines 5 P Neville 6 M Fernandes 5 L Carsley Y 5 S Pienaar 6 A Johnson 6 Yakubu Ayegbeni 5 Substitutes: V Anichebe 5 (for Pienaar, 64), T Gravesen (for Yakubu, 89). Not used: S Wessels, J Yobo, Nuno Valente. Next: Chelsea (h).

Referee: S Bennett
Attendance: 25,923