“An unknown quantity” – Birmingham City linked with new managerial appointment: The verdict | OneFootball

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Football League World

·19 May 2022

“An unknown quantity” – Birmingham City linked with new managerial appointment: The verdict

Article image:“An unknown quantity” – Birmingham City linked with new managerial appointment: The verdict

This article is part of Football League World’s ‘The Verdict‘ series, which provides personal opinions from the FLW writers regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

Birmingham City have been linked with the potential appointment of John Herdman as their new manager.


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Despite Lee Bowyer still being in charge at the Blues, the Sun have reported that the club is looking at bringing in the 46-year old this summer.

Here, we ask our FLW writers for their verdict on the potential appointment.

Toby Wilding

This feels like it could be a rather risky appointment for Birmingham in all honesty.

Admittedly, Herdman has done a brilliant job in getting Canada back to the World Cup after so long without qualification, so it is perhaps understandable he is attracting attention.

However, the difference in demands between club and international management are vast, and giving he has never managed at club level, there may be no guarantee he is able to make that transition.

You also get the feeling that as a result, this may not be the most inspiring appointment when you consider the names out there with proven success and experience in the Championship, meaning this may be somewhat underwhelming for Birmingham fans, which will not be what they are hoping for after recent events.

Adam Jones

Herdman is an unknown quantity in England – but a comparison can be made with Michael O’Neill moving to Stoke City.

O’Neill did a great job of stabilising the ship at the bet365 Stadium and a similar job needs to be carried out at St Andrew’s, though it remains to be seen how well the England-born coach would adapt from international to domestic football.

Quiz: Can you name which club Birmingham City sold these 23 players to from the last decade?

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Article image:“An unknown quantity” – Birmingham City linked with new managerial appointment: The verdict

Ben Foster

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This is why this appointment would be a risk – and if they were to replace Lee Bowyer – Mark Warburton would probably be the better option at this stage with the 59-year-old having plenty of experience in the second tier.

With clubs already recruiting players though including Cardiff City, they need to move quickly if they are to bring Herdman in.

Carla Devine

This is certainly a left field candidate for the Birmingham City job and not a name I expected to see come up.

It feels like this could go drastically one of two ways, either very successfully or very poorly in a short space of time.

Given Herdman has never managed at club level it’s hard to make an assessment on how well he would do because the job is different starting with what you do on the day to day.

However, if you’re looking at results then it’s hard to argue that this wouldn’t be a good appointment. Herdman has won 70.73% of his games with the Canadian national team which is very impressive.

With their off the pitch troubles, it’s fair to assume they’d be a number of managers in England who don’t want the job so in that case it makes sense to bring him over. However, you can’t blame the fans if they feel nervous about this one.

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