Kyle 39 Forssell 28 Match Report 
Both teams will go into monday's hat for the Quarter Final draw, but it will be Sunderland who will be most disappointed at not having won first time out after being the better side. After Q.P.R.'s recent defeat at Chesterfield, their enigmatic manager Ian Holloway said that the performance has left a bad smell in his nostrils - the smell of complacency. Well, if complacency is a characteristic capable of smelling, then Blues well and truly stank.
Olivier Tebily's injury meant that Steve Bruce was forced into a change from the team that eased past Everton on wednesday night, and it was Jeff Kenna who returned to the team at right back. Otherwise it was the same starting eleven, with Aliou Cisse returning to the bench after African Nations Cup duty.
Blues simply never started the game, and for about 20 minutes hardly touched the ball. Jeff Whitley and Jason McAteer bossed the midfield battle against the poor Bryan Hughes and the clearly unfit Robbie Savage. Julio Arca was always a threat down the left-hand side, whilst Kevin Kyle caused problems up front with his height and physique. If there wasn't an element of complacency about Blues, then how, 3 days ago, did they make Duncan Ferguson look useless, and then today let Kyle - who is about one tenth the player that Ferguson is - look like a world beater. It was the same defenders...
However, after 28 minutes Blues took the lead. Stan Lazaridis and Clinton Morrison combined to set up Mikael Forssell. The Finnish striker jinked his way past a couple of defenders in the area with some sublime skills, before placing the ball past Mart Poom to silence the huge 24,000 crowd that had amassed in a ground that holds 46,000.
Blues should have gone 2-0 up just minutes later, but asking Morrison to finish coolly is asking a bit too much. Through on goal, and one-on-one with Poom, Morrison showed none of the poise in front of goal that he showed in the last minute of last season's fixture here, and hit the ball wide.
After 39 minutes, that mistake was made to look even more costly, when Kyle equalised. Damien Johnson had intercepted the ball well, but rather than release either Savage or Kenna, who both went sprinting forward to try and hit on the counter, Johnson opted to lose control of the ball 40 yards from his own goal by attempting to dribble past players. Marcus Stewart took advantage, and got a cross in from the left-hand side, which Kyle glaced home with a diving header.
At half-time, it was a case of 'well, at least we're level, and we can have a go in the second half now' for the travelling Blues fans (some 3,500 - 4,000 in number - surprising the Police who had decided to move the 'sterile area' in, and as a result, hundreds of Blues fans had tickets for seats they couldn't sit in).
The second half, however, continued in the same vein as the first, with Stephen Wright hitting Maik Taylor's bar just 5 minutes into the second period. Morrison failed miserably with two headed efforts, before being replaced by Christophe Dugarry, who ponced around for 10 minutes until realising that perhaps these First Division players could actually play a bit, so he might have to start playing himself.
As the game drew to a close, both teams went in search of a winner, but Blues were too quick to over-elaborate, with Forssell and Dugarry opting for dummies and back-heels when simple football was what the situation required. John Oster should have won it for the home side late on, but flashed a shot wide when well placed.
Blues' miserable evening was completed when Aliou Cisse (on the pitch for 9 minutes) was sent off. He'd been booked within minutes of entering the fray for arguing with referee Graham Barber, and from that point on, everyone knew he was going to get sent off for a stupid tackle. He did.
Blues are a better team than Sunderland, but didn't show it, because they went into the game thinking they were a better team that Sunderland. Too many players totally under-performed, and there's no excuse. Sunderland played good football, and probably deserved to go through, but it's a measure of Blues today that they were still able to come away with a replay after such a truly appalling display. At St. Andrews in 10 days time, they will need to treat Sunderland with the respect they deserve, or they really will come unstuck.