AVRAM GRANT called off his birthday celebrations after seeing his West Ham side sink to the bottom of the Premier League table with a 1-0 home defeat to Birmingham.

The Hammers appeared to be on the up after a midweek win at Blackpool but they looked back to their inconsistent worst yesterday, rarely threatening the visitors’ goal throughout in a disjointed performance.

Nikola Zigic’s second-half header was enough to see the home side off and put Grant’s position as manager back under the spotlight.

Grant said: “I am not so happy, my birthday is cancelled.”

“How can I celebrate? We didn’t score and didn’t win.

“It is not happy birthday but it is not me that is important, it is the team.

“We take a few steps forward and one back and we need to learn from this. We deserve to stay up but we need to do it.

“We cannot lose games like this.

“The disappointing thing is that we lost to a team near us.

“Until now we have won these games. It will be a battle until the end but we need to take points because we have the quality to do that.”