LONDON — Birmingham City and Blackpool were both relegated from the Premier League Sunday following defeats to Tottenham and Manchester United.
Birmingham suffered the agony of relegation after an injury time blast by Roman Pavlyuchenko sealed a 2-1 victory for Spurs at White Hart Lane.
The strike was Pavlyuchenko’s second of the match. The Russian opened the scoring on 49 minutes with a right-footed shot from outside the box.
Birmingham looked set to preserve its top-flight status by the narrowest of margins following a leveler by midfielder Craig Gardner on 79 minutes.
But as the visitors tried to hang onto a precious point, Pavlyuchenko strode through to once again rifle home from outside the box, going off the crossbar to condemn the Blues to relegation.
Blackpool was sent back to the Championship after losing 4-2 at Manchester United.
The Seasiders departed the top flight in roller-coaster fashion as Ian Holloway, having pledged to attack the Premier League champions, saw his team have its first clear sight of the home goal after less than 30 seconds.
Unfortunately, the magnitude of the opportunity got the better of Keith Southern, who side-footed wide of Edwin Van der Sar’s goal.
The optimism Holloway’s men brought with them remained until Dimitar Berbatov slipped a pass through to Park Si-Jung midway through the first half and the South Korean clipped home a clinical first-time effort to give United the lead.
But Charlie Adam breathed life back into Blackpool’s sail with a superb free-kick past Van der Sar on 40 minutes before Gary Taylor-Fletcher added a second goal on 57 minutes to boost the visitor’s hopes.
However, United’s Anderson leveled just five minutes later to get Blackpool sweating once more. The Seasiders then clung to the life raft for another 10 minutes until the waves of impending defeat crashed in courtesy of Ian Evatt’s catastrophic own goal.
Michael Owen would then seal Blackpool’s fate, giving the Red Devils the 4-2 lead nine minutes from time.
