EXCITEMENT seems to follow Saints wherever they go these days - unfortunately on this occasion they were on the receiving end of an entertaining turnaround.

It's hard to believe this is the same Saints team that a few months found it difficult to score and rarely conceded.

In recent weeks, in the league at least, they seem to have been flying in from all angles - at both ends.

Saints have now conceded two goals in four of their last five Premiership games, scoring ten.

Perhaps it's no coincidence that Chris Marsden has sat out all four of those matches avoiding suspension or serving a suspension. The one in five he did play ended just 1-1.

It may be true that in making sure you don't concede many you also don't score so many and, when you a lose a player with the defensive awareness of Marsden, you could be open to score more but also concede more.

But one major positive - and this is a major positive for Gordon Strachan - is the new found ability to score goals without James Beattie having to finish every chance.

Of course he has been superb this season and his form has been a major reason why Saints are where they are right now.

You wouldn't want to take that away, but there's no hiding the fact that other areas of the team haven't contributed enough.

That goes from Beattie's strike partners, right through the midfield and the defence - and Antti Niemi only hit the bar against Fulham!

But now other players have started to get in on the act it's better news all round. After not scoring in the league all season, Anders Svensson, playing the first half up front with Beattie, now has two in two.

He gave Saints the lead at Birmingham totally against the run of play. The Blues had been dominant and forced Paul Jones into two good saves before Beattie flicked on a long ball for Svensson to run onto and superbly loft over the keeper from an acute angle on 31 minutes.

Saints took their lead into the break but Birmingham came out firing again after the re-start.

Christophe Dugarry was the main danger with a whole array of Gallic trickery. It didn't look to be his day though as his finishing left somewhat to be desired.

But, after Ian Bennett had thwarted Beattie on a one-on-one for the second time in the match, the Frenchman came good.

There seems to be some debate over whether he should have been allowed to have re-taken his 20-yard free kick after opting to take the first one quickly and blasting it into the wall.

But re-take it he did and he found the net. It went round the edge of the wall but Jones got a hand to it. All things considered, he may feel he should have kept it out.

That was on 75 minutes and was the first of four goals that would turn this game on it's head in the space of seven minutes.

Two minutes later Wayne Bridge's long ball was flicked on by Michael Svensson for second half sub Brett Ormerod to slam home his third in three games and restore Saints' lead.

Sadly for Saints the scoring didn't end there. Birmingham were level again two minutes later when Geoff Horsfield got to the by-line amid appeals for offside and chipped to the far post where Dugarry headed home another equaliser.

It got worse for Saints on 82 minutes when Stern John turned Bridge, skipped past the challenge of Danny Higginbotham and crossed for Bryan Hughes to side foot home the winner.

Exciting, yes, but sadly no points to go with it this time.