The Blues will win no popularity contests for their decision to sack Gary Rowett – but will they win any football games?
Stan Collymore has taken to his BoyleSports column to slam Birmingham City’s controversial decision to replace promising manager Gary Rowett with a man whose managerial CV consists of comfortably more sackings than successes.
The majority of Blues fans, not to mention neutrals, were left in uproar when reports emerged that one of the most highly rated young British coaches around was handed his P45 at St Andrews despite Birmingham sitting pretty on the verge of the play-off positions.
Rowett, who had earned a giant step up the footballing pyramid after guiding unfancied Burton Albion into League One, took over at the second city side when they were just a point above the bottom of the table following an 8-0 home defeat to Bournemouth.
However, he masterminded a turnaround, guiding Birmingham to successive top half finishes with a third in a row on the cards this season until his surprise sacking.
Various reports emerged suggesting the club’s new owners had decided to dispense with the 42-year-old due to the poor performances of his new signings and claims that he was interested in the vacant managerial role at QPR but, nonetheless, Collymore has pulled no punches in his assessment – especially with Gianfranco Zola being brought in as his replacement.
“What does this say to young British coaches, already battling against in many cases foreign managers or coaches who have friendships with magnates or owners and who are pushed to the front of the queue for jobs?” Collymore wrote in his column for BoyleSports.
“It basically says ‘Stuff you, don’t bother looking for work, don’t bother doing your badges, we’ll use our own men from our own sources, whether or not you’re good enough to do the job’, and that for me makes the game increasingly corrupt.
“If you are telling me Gianfranco Zola, ironically a man who did that exact thing on the pitch but nothing yet off it, is better than Gary Rowett or deserves to walk in on the back of the Englishman’s work, I’m sorry but you are completely wrong.”
It cannot be disputed that the former Chelsea great has never managed to replicate his success on the pitch in his career off it, with a play-off final defeat to Crystal Palace in 2013 the closest the Italian has come to a credible triumph in management.
The 50-year-old failed to revitalise a shambolically ran West Ham side in 2009/10 though he alone should hardly be forced to shoulder the entirety of the blame after previous ownership left the club in the limbo.
Yet, in his last two jobs at Cagliari and Al-Arabi, Zola took charge of a combined 36 games before getting the chop on both occasions – hardly making him the safest pair of hands on paper, especially after replacing a man whose knowledge of the leagues was proving crucial to Birmingham’s revival.
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