Blues 0 - Real Mallorca 0

Last updated : 12 August 2003 By Brian Cartlidge
A crowd of just under 20,000 turned up in anticipation of seeing Steve Bruce's trio of new summer signings don the Blue shirt for the first time at St. Andrew's.

Bruce gave a start to new keeper Maik Taylor after his loan signing was announced on Friday, and the Northern Ireland keeper began nervously as the Spanish Cup holders began brightly and caused the Blues defence problems. His confidence grew however after he saved smartly from Perera and shortly after stopped a shot from Bruggink.

Blues began to settle and Stern John hit the bar and Horsfield brought a good save out of Real keeper Cifuentes.

Eto'o then almost embarrassed Blues new keeper with a cheeky overhead effort having spotted Taylor off his line, with the last real effort of an entertaining and even first half.

Bruce made five substitutions at half-time and for the first half-hour after the break they controlled the game with Dugarry, Carter and Horsfield all going close to opening the scoring.

Argentinian striker Luciano Figueroa was sent on to rapturous applause in the 79th minute and he came close to breaking the deadlock with a header which he really should of done better with.

All-in-all a good run-out for Blues, in their final friendly of the close season, and a chance for most fans to see the likes of Dunn, Taylor and Figueroa for the first time. What a shame they couldn't have seen them in the traditional home Blue shirt instead of the new away kit!

Blues: Taylor, Kenna (Upson 45), Tebily, Cunningham, Clapham (Figueroa 79), Johnson (Devlin 45), Savage (Lazaridis 45), Clemence (Hughes 66), Dunn (Carter 66), John (Dugarry 45), Horsfield (Kirovski 45)

Real Mallorca: Cifuentes, Bejarano, Ballesteros, Eto'o Fils, Serrano, Nadal Homar, Martin De La Fuente, Pi Sola (Robles 66), Gonzalez, Bruggink (Tuni 88), Perera Lopez (Rodriguez 57)

Attendance: 19,148