It was 11 games in the making, and Gianfranco Zola could not hide his relief at finally securing his first win in charge of Birmingham against ten-man Fulham.

Lukas Jutkiewicz scored the only goal of the game after Ryan Fredericks had seen red for a reckless tackle on Craig Gardner.

Zola admitted the doubts had started to creep in as his search for a first victory went on, but was full of praise for the way his players responded.

And the Italian admits the hard work is just beginning, as Birmingham look to rediscover the form which saw them flirt with the play-off places before Zola replaced Gary Rowett in the dugout.

“You can imagine, it’s the moment which we’ve been waiting for,” he admitted. “Of course I’m relieved because when you’re working and you don’t get results the doubts start to come.

“It was a difficult game – tough opposition, and then tough conditions because the confidence is not 100 per cent and we were missing players at the back.

“But now we need to continue. This is just a little step, and we have a lot of them to make.

“This is just the beginning and it will be important because it will give the players’ confidence. The quality of the football will get better, so it’s good.”

Jutkiewicz was in the thick of the action from the off, dragging a shot well wide within a minute of kick-off, and missing the target again on four minutes.

At the other end, Fredericks’ hanging cross found Stefan Johansen totally unmarked on 11 minutes but his weak header was easily saved by Tomasz Kuszczak.

A quick throw-in caught Fulham’s defence napping on 19 minutes and allowed Craig Gardner to chip an inviting cross into Jutkiewicz, but the big striker’s header cannoned off the bar.

Both sides continued to trade chances, and stand-in captain Paul Robinson put his body on the line to block Tom Cairney’s fierce long-range strike on 35 minutes.

Chris Martin could have broken the deadlock on 54 minutes, getting his head to Sone Aluko’s left-footed cross, but his glancing effort flashed wide across goal.

The game-changing moment arrived on 68 minutes though, when Fredericks lunged in on Gardner and referee Andrew Madley produced a red card.

With Fulham exposed, Blues left-back Cheick Keita immediately looked to push forward and it was his touch on from which Che Adams went close on 70 minutes.

And five minutes later Davis’ through ball released Keita on the left-wing, and his low cross was turned in from close range by Jutkiewicz.

Jutkiewicz almost added a spectacular second on 82 minutes, when Gardner’s deflected free-kick sat up nicely for him, but his overhead kick was tipped over by David Button.

Fulham threw caution to the wind in search of an equaliser, and it nearly paid off in the third minute of stoppage time when Floyd Ayite found space in the middle but he sliced wide.

And boss Slavisa Jokanovic admitted: “In general we didn’t play our best game. Birmingham were more solid, and won all the second balls.

“We didn’t combine well enough and we didn’t create too many things – having Ryan Fredericks sent off was the situation which killed us but we didn’t create enough to change the game.

“The red card was clearly a setback for our intentions in the game. We tried to find a solution, but we didn’t have a good game.

“Our intention was to win the game [and continue our winning run]. We did not play well enough to do that and the end result was fair.”

Read more on Fulham each week in The Football League Paper