TOP v bottom, as it turned out.
Birmingham City's best start in 11 years has arrived at the same time as a Simon Davey all-time career low.
The Barnsley boss admitted he'd never lost four on the bounce before. That was about all there was new in the post-match inquest statements.
Like Iain Dowie at QPR and Coventry manager Chris Coleman before him, Birmingham's Alex McLeish admitted Barnsley were a decent outfit. Could have easily got a draw or more, they all knew.
Fourth time around it's tough to take just words of consolation home and today's Championship table, with it's ugly fat zero alongside Barnsley, puts everyone who draws a salary from the Oakwell playing/coaching budget under pressure.
Davey, always a thinker sometimes a tinker-man, had a game-plan to take to St Andrews. Keep it tight with five at the back, hold it at 0-0 and maybe nick a goal.
A minute into first-half time added on and the drawing board was being reass-embled in the Barnsley changing room. 2-0 does that.
But before Plan B and behind closed doors, Davey -though he'd never admit it - must have given stick.
Two centres, two-far post headers and 2-0. Blame had to go to the left -back for the first cross, the right-back for the second, not to mention the three centre-backs and keeper who managed to miss both.
Football is sod's laws' biggest advocate so it was inevitable that:
A) Birmingham would start with Kevin Phillips for the first time in a league match.
B) Phillips would score.
It just had to be that the striker who Davey said any Championship manager would give his right arm for would kick him in the teeth. Certainly it must have felt that way.
Phillips looked every inch exactly what Barnsley are missing. His header after 12 minutes went in at bullet speed after Stuart Parnaby's right-to-left cross was hard and inch-perfect.
"We tried to get him (Phillips) in the summer when we knew he was coming out of West Brom. Today there's evidence why we tried to get him. He gets a chance and he puts it in the back of the net. He prolific at this level and he's doing the business now for Birmingham, which is unfortunate for us," Davey said.
Barnsley's own big moment of the first half came from Diego Leon. The little Spaniard, a big , big talent but a bit over-intricate on the day, smacked a 20-yarder on to the crossbar after Martin Devaney squared the ball to him.
Jon Macken also hit woodwork though his toe-poke on to the post came under the shadow off an offside flag.
Before Barnsley could build on any of that. Birmingham had doubled their advantage. Quincy Owuso-Abeyie (just Quincy to his mates) fired one up and over the six-yard box and Garry O'Connor was in isolation as he headed home comfortably by Luke Steele's back stick.
Second-half changes saw Bobby Hassell off and Kayode Odejayi on and Barnsley back playing the usual 4-4-2.
They did improve and Odejayi set up a couple of chances which probably last season Brian Howard would have netted.
On came Miguel Mostto for Martin Devaney after Devaney had blasted over when well placed.
Said Davey: "Kayode (Odejayi) gave us that little bit of power, strength and pace. We changed the style of play to try to get back into the game. We ended up going with three stikers up front .
"You're chasing the game. No matter what you say to the lads about keeping their shape and doing certain things, what they'll do is take a chance. They won't track the runner, they want to take a gamble and that's what happened in the second half and it became an open game.
"It was end-to-end stuff. We'd have a chance, they'd have a chance. If one of those goes in the game changes, but unfortunately for us it didn't."
Barnsley couldn't relax. Lee Carsley fired an effort at Steele from 30 yards while James McFadden also unleashed another shot wide of the target.
Steele produced heroics late on to deny substitute Gary McSheffrey as the clash came to a close and Birmingham climbed to the top of the league.
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