Rival boss Gary Rowett complains over the goal not given against Rotherham United

The Birmingham City interim manager conceded that one of the visitors' players was standing in an offside position when the ball was struck but claimed that it had no influence on the ball hitting the back of the net.

Away fans, whose team are in danger of going down, celebrated and ran on to the pitch before a late flag from the assistant referee ruled out the 76th-minute effort of Jay Stansfield.

The loan striker had shot through a crowded penalty area after latching on to Lee Peltier's header out from a free-kick

“There is a player in or around the goalkeeper,” Rowett said. “There's about 15 of them, but one is in an offside position.

“I don’t think the keeper saves it anyway. It does not impact his vision. Jay hits it so hard and low and wide of the keeper that he isn’t going to save it.”

Replays show that full-back Lee Buchanan was offside and was close enough to Johansson to impair the Swede's view.

A second Birmingham man, centre-half Krystian Bielik, appears to be offside as well but is further away from Rotherham's shot-stopper.

The match, which marked former boss Steve Evans' return to the already-relegated Millers, finished 0-0, adding to the relegation worries of City who ended the weekend in 22nd place.

Rowett said of the contest: “It was an attritional game. The way that Rotherham are going to be set up, you know they’re going to be very direct, play for second balls and make it difficult to get out.

“I thought it was difficult to find any rhythm. It was a tough game.

“The first half was a non-event, the second half was a little bit better. We just needed those moments of quality to open up the game. Sometimes we did that without finding an end to it and sometimes we lacked composure.”