"Didn't seem to have a clue" - Wayne Rooney named in Birmingham City worst manager debate | OneFootball

We asked our Birmingham City fan pundit who their worst ever managerial appointment was

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more...

Wayne Rooney has been labelled as Birmingham City's worst ever managerial appointment after a disastrous spell in charge last season which ultimately led to their relegation.

Rooney was appointed by the club's owners, Knighthead Capital, in October 2023 despite them making a good start to the season under John Eustace and sitting in sixth place, but the former Manchester United and England captain lost nine of his 15 games and took Blues from sixth to 20th, summing up how badly his time at St Andrew's went.

He lasted less than three months as Birmingham City manager, but it set the tone for their eventual relegation, with the likes of Tony Mowbray and Gary Rowett unable to turn things around in the following months.

Of course, Rooney is back in Championship management now with Plymouth Argyle, while Birmingham are in League One, and understandably, he's been deemed their worst ever manager.

Wayne Rooney deemed Birmingham City's worst ever managerial appointment

We asked our Birmingham City fan pundit, Mike Gibbs, who the club's worst ever managerial appointment is, and he deemed Rooney's short tenure during the 2023/24 campaign to be the worst that he's seen.

Speaking to Football League World, Mike said: "That’s a really easy one for me, it’s definitely Rooney.

“Close run thing with Gianfranco Zola, but for me Rooney was just disastrous. He didn’t really seem to have a clue, and we just went backwards so simply, and it just came down to the number of points he managed to achieve, and it was just atrocious.

“I think any manager who can take a team from sixth in the league to 20th is doing something wrong, and he never got the fans onside, blamed the players a lot and the only thing in his defence was that he didn’t have a transfer window where he could bring in his players, but John Eustace got a tune out of the players before him, and it wasn’t a bad group of players.”

Sacking John Eustace cost Birmingham City their Championship status

Replacing Eustace with Rooney will be remembered as one of the worst managerial decisions in Championship history, and there's no way that Birmingham would have been relegated had they kept Eustace in charge.

While there's a feel good factor around St Andrew's and the owners at the moment thanks to their investment and the team's performances on the pitch, it's hard not to think that they shouldn't be in League One anyway.

Birmingham City were in the play-off places before appointing Rooney, and while they may have struggled to sustain that throughout the season, there's no way they'd have spiralled down the table like they did after sacking Eustace.

In fairness to Rooney, he has done a better job at Plymouth to earn some sort of credit, but his time at St Andrew's will go down as a disastrous spell all round.

In hindsight, Tom Wagner and co almost certainly regret sacking Eustace, and while they're thriving in League One now it should never have got to that stage.