Preston goalscorer Callum Robinson began his career with Aston Villa, Birmingham's great rivals

Preston North End gave their hopes of a late play-off push a boost with victory over Birmingham City, who had Craig Gardner sent off with 10 minutes to go.

Blues, who have won once in 13 games under Gianfranco Zola, fell behind when an unmarked Callum Robinson headed in.

Che Adams levelled with a fierce, bouncing strike after half-time.

But Jordan Hugill tapped in from Daryl Horgan's square ball to win it, moments before Blues captain Gardner was sent off for a second bookable offence.

Preston climb to 10th, seven points below the play-off places, while Birmingham slipped to 14th, a further eight points behind.

Blues, without injured quartet Clayton Donaldson, Michael Morrison, Ryan Shotton and Jacques Maghoma, and suspended midfielder David Davis, have now lost five of their seven away games since Zola's arrival on 14 December, conceding 14 goals on their travels in that time.

Gardner - captaining Birmingham for the first time - was dismissed for a late tackle on Greg Cunningham just moments after Hugill's winning goal, having been booked earlier in the second half for a foul on Horgan.

After Preston's Hugill was denied by a brilliant save from Tomasz Kuszczak early on, Robinson had space to head in the opener from close range when Aiden McGeady was given time to cross from the left wing.

Zola's side had hope when Adams latched on to Lukas Jutkiewicz's fine knock-down to lash in from outside the area with his left foot, netting for the first time since November, but Hugill evaded the Birmingham defence to earn Preston a second successive win.

Preston manager Simon Grayson:

"We dominated from start to finish, created some real good chances and there was some outstanding individual performances.

"We just needed a couple more goals to warrant that first-half performance.

"You always know if you don't take those chances, the opposition are going to have some spell in the game.

"We've shown a lot of character to stay in a game in the second half; we dug in and took our chances when they came along."

Birmingham boss Gianfranco Zola:

"I don't want to talk about luck any more, I'm fed up of using that. The reason we keep losing games like this is not because we are unlucky, at the moment we are very poor, simple as that.

"I'm the first person responsible, we can do much better than this. We had total control in the second half. We were just waiting to score.

"The players are very edgy at the moment, the confidence is not there. I am sorry, I am very frustrated at the moment.

"Now is the moment we stop talking and just start acting a little better than we are at the minute."