Aston Villa striker Gabriel Agbonlahor expects Birmingham skipper Liam Ridgewell to remove him from his Christmas card list after breaking his heart at both ends of the pitch at St Andrews.

Former Villa defender Ridgewell scored an own goal but then only a goalline clearance from Agbonlahor prevented him from putting Blues in front in the closing stages of the derby after Mikael Forssell had headed the equaliser.

Then, within 60 seconds, Agbonlahor was Ridgewell's tormentor at the other end when he headed home an 87th-minute cross from Ashley Young to settle the Barclays Premier League contest.

It was his fifth goal of the campaign and the Birmingham-born player celebrated by throwing his shirt into the delirious Villa fans at the final whistle.

Agbonlahor consoled Ridgewell and admitted: "I felt sorry for him. He scored the own goal and then I blocked his header off the line before scoring the winner.

"I thought he did well and had a good game. He might take me off his Christmas card list! I'll have to find out if he is still talking to me."

Agbonlahor added: "Being a local lad, it means a lot to me to score in the derby but it was a great overall performance from the lads.

"It is nice scoring against an arch-rival but the most important thing is we won the game and the character we showed will stand us in good stead for the rest of the season.

"When you are 1-0 up away from home, and the home team equalises, your heads can go down and it is credit to the lads that they really kept fighting on.

"We battled on to the end. That is the first away win of the season and hopefully we can start pushing on away from home because at the moment our home form is really good."

Agbonlahor admits the reaction of the Villa fans before the kick-off acted as an inspiration to the side.

He said: "When we were warming up, the Villa fans were really loud and that made the lads really want to do even better in the game and showed them how much it means to the fans.

"Even when we conceded the goal, the fans kept rooting for us and we showed our appreciation at the end by throwing them our shirts."

Blues manager Steve Bruce hit out at referee Steve Bennett and believes he denied his side two clear-cut penalties - for handball by Zat Knight and a challenge by Martin Laursen on Daniel De Ridder, who was booked for diving.

Bruce said: "In the first half it looked like we should have had two penalties. We felt aggrieved by those decisions and those decisions in big games can be big turning points.

"There is contact on De Ridder by Laursen and it looked a handball to me by Knight. That is two glaring mistakes by the referee which summed our afternoon up. Mr Bennett never gives us a decision.

"I've now lost three derbies on the trot, pf course it hurts. I feel for the people who have to go to work tomorrow - I know what I'm usually like. I'm usually worse the day after so I know what they'll be like on a Monday morning.

"We shouldn't have lost. A draw might have been a fair result and it is cruel on us to concede in the last three minutes because if any team was going to nick it, I thought it was us."