"Making their owners look foolish" - Simon Jordan issues Birmingham City prediction | OneFootball

Former Crystal Palace owner and talkSPORT pundit Simon Jordan believes Birmingham City will stay in the Championship this season, and he defended the club's plans to build a new stadium.

It has been an incredibly turbulent season for the Blues, and their decline started after the controversial decision to replace John Eustace with Wayne Rooney in October, despite sitting in the play-off places at the time.

Rooney was sacked in January after winning just two of his 15 games in charge, leaving the club 20th in the table, and his replacement, Tony Mowbray, made a strong start to life in the role, but he stepped down temporarily due to health reasons in February.

After picking up just one point from six games under Mowbray's assistant Mark Venus, Birmingham brought former manager Gary Rowett back as interim head coach, but he has struggled to turn the club's fortunes around so far.

Rowett suffered his third defeat in four games as his side were beaten 1-0 by Cardiff City at St Andrew's @ Knighthead Park on Wednesday night, with Josh Bowler's 65th-minute strike sealing all three points for the Bluebirds, and it was a poor performance for the hosts as they failed to create many meaningful chances.

The Blues currently sit 23rd in the table, one point from safety, and they are back in action when they host local rivals Coventry City on Saturday.

Birmingham have made headlines off the pitch this week as they announced plans to build a new 60,000-seater stadium, and owner Tom Wagner insists that the development will go ahead even if the club are relegated to League One.

Jordan: The future could be bright for Birmingham City

Jordan believes that Birmingham will have enough to stay in the Championship this season, and while he admits that the ownership have made mistakes, he urged supporters to look beyond the short-term.

"Relegation may well have been a long time in coming because of the various ownership models post-Sullivan and Gold, and the decisions that were made by these ownerships," Jordan said on talkSPORT.

"This new ownership have compounded the problem, they can't be judged for the sins of the past, they picked up some of the bad decisions that were made, the overpayment of wages and the challenges that Birmingham had for a few years, and the absentee landlord of an owner sitting in a certain situation not running it properly.

"But they can be responsible for the plight of the last 12 months, the decision to appoint Rooney was a bad football decision, they haven't pivoted from it and reacted quickly enough, and the results haven't come.

"They put Tony Mowbray in, Tony Mowbray was unwell, and now Gary Rowett's gone back in there. "I still think they've probably got just enough in the tank to get themselves out of it. "Huddersfield got smashed 4-1 against Preston in midweek, they are their immediate rivals, Plymouth could be dragged into it, Millwall could be dragged back into it. "They probably need 49 points to stay up."

"Sometimes in life, tragically, things don't work out the way you want them to, and sometimes you have to take one step back to take two steps forward," Jordan continued.

"Nobody wants to do that, and I'm not advocating that's the blueprint you should follow.

"Right now, Birmingham are, on the field, making their owners look foolish because their owners have made foolish decisions.

"Whether their owners are going to abdicate responsibility, or whether they're going to say whatever comes our way, which I think they probably will do, we will be the ones that have to bankroll this, we will be the ones that have to bridge the gap for our own decisions, and sorry fans we let you down because the team isn't performing the way we thought it should do and we made decision based on autograph hunting for Wayne Rooney.

"But you've got to move past the micromanagement and low-level thinking of it's just the appointment of Wayne Rooney, and look at what they will build there in the end."

Birmingham City facing crucial few weeks in the Championship

It is difficult to disagree with Jordan that the long-term plans of the Birmingham owners are exciting for the club, but they must focus on getting it right on the pitch first.

The hierarchy have made a number of poor decisions this season, most notably the appointment of Rooney, and relegation is becoming an increasingly concerning prospect.

It was an incredibly disappointing performance against Cardiff in midweek, and it does not get much easier for the Blues with the visit of Coventry on Saturday before games against Rotherham United, Huddersfield Town and Norwich City.

As Jordan says, the ownership will provide the funding to help Birmingham rebuild in League One should they be relegated this season, but there is no guarantee the club would be able to make a quick return from the third tier.