Manchester City slipped eight points behind leader Manchester United in the Premier League title race after conceding a late penalty for a 2-2 draw at lowly Birmingham.
City led 2-1 through Carlos Tevez's 15th Premier League goal of the season and Aleksander Kolarov's first, but Craig Gardner equalized with a 77th-minute penalty after Patrick Vieira had fouled Kevin Phillips in the area.
City manager Roberto Mancini was unhappy at the award of the penalty but did not make excuses for his team.
''If we want to go up the table, we should play better than tonight,'' Mancini said.
The draw left City three points behind second-place Arsenal and just two ahead of Chelsea. But City has played 25 matches, one more than the other teams in the top five.
Tevez collected a fourth-minute pass from David Silva and put City ahead with an angled shot that took a slight deflection off Birmingham's Martin Jiranek on its way into the far corner.
Nikola Zigic equalized in the 23rd, but Kolarov restored City's advantage four minutes before halftime with a free kick hit from outside the area into the bottom left corner.
Gardner won it, though, following Vieira's clumsy challenge.
