Birmingham City, Redknapp's men to Rooney's boys .

In the 2010/2011 Premier League season, Birmingham City were relegated to the Championship by only a point, losing to Tottenham Hotspur on the final day of the season. Since then, the blues have stayed in the English second division and have diced with both promotion back and relegation to League One in their time. After a start to the season that left them in a playoff place under John Eustace, things quickly turned sour for the Blues as the got knocked out of the Carabao cup to Cardiff and some poor league results as well. Now they sit 20th in the league with only 1 win in their last 9 games and without a manager after sacking Wayne Rooney. How did it turn this bad for the Midlands side, and can it be turned around.

John Eustace was starting his second season at Birmingham after a 17th place finish the season previous, tied on points with Stoke City and Huddersfield Town. The summer window saw some high profile players leave the club, including Tahith Chong who went to Premier League side Luton Town and Jobe Bellingham to championship rivals Sunderland. However, the Blues went bargain hunting in the summer transfer window, finding some players who had the potential to be game changers for a mid table Birmingham side. Cody Drameh was bought on a season long loan from Leeds United, Jay Stansfield on loan from Fulham, Siriki Dembele from Bournemouth for £2.1 million and youngster Ethan Laird from Manchester United bought for £750k. The most expensive player they signed was Tyler Roberts, a winger from Leeds for £2.8 million, closely followed by defensive midfielder Krystian Bielek from Derby for £2.6 million. They rounded out the window with a new pairing at Centre-back with Dion Sanderson and Lee Buchanan, free transfers of Koji Miyoshi and Keshi Anderson as well as loan signings of Emanuel Aiwu and Oliver Burke. Birmingham also found a new minority owner courtesy of NFL legend Tom Brady who became the head of the new advisory board that was put in place at the start of the season. A good pre season run only losing 1 game to Peterborough meant John Eustace's team looks like a formidable one to go against.

Birmingham's first game meant a trip to Wales to play Swansea away, which ended in the 1-1 draw, a less exciting game then the 3-4 win that came with the previous visit. New boy Siriki Dembele getting on the scoresheet and Ethan Laird getting Player of the Match. A positive start for the Blues would get even better as they would win their next 4 games, including progressing in the Carabao Cup away against Cheltenham Town and a surprise result against Leeds United. This meant they were fourth in the Championship table at the end of August, tied on points with Norwich City in third. However, this would be the highest point of Birmingham's season, as they would go on a 6 game winless streak that saw them lose to Cardiff in the Carabao Cup and also to teams like Preston and QPR. On the bright side, the new signings were playing well and if they kept playing well, then it may yield some good results soon enough and bring them back to the playoffs.

Birmingham would then go on and score seven goals in their next two games at home, beating Huddersfield 4-1 and putting three goals past West Brom in a 3-1 win on derby day. In spite of these results, John Eustace would be sacked to the surprise of Birmingham fans and members of the wider football community, Chris Sutton responded to the news on social media with a simple reply: "Madness". Less then 48 hours later, the club would announce a new head coach, that man being Wayne Rooney from MLS side DC United. The announcement was met with some backlash, with fans saying that the board hired Rooney on his name rather than his ability as a manager. The fans wanted to keep Eustace over his great work last season keeping the club up when they looked sure to be relegated and now the fans felt understandably betrayed and were annoyed, but willing to see if Rooney could handle it.

Rooney's start would not go to well, losing three games in a row to Middlesbrough, Southampton and Hull, which left the club in 12th on 18 points by the end of October, only two points from a playoff place. The next game would be a surprising 2-2 draw at home against high flyers Ipswich Town, even taking a 2-0 lead before substitute Marcus Harness turned the game around scored two goals within ten minutes. Next week would be another loss, this time to Sunderland away from home meaning Wayne Rooney would only get one point from his first five games in charge, a poor result for most managers. They managed to scrape a win against a struggling Sheffield Wednesday team, a first for Rooney and he would hope it would be the last. Unfortunately, it wasn't. Since then, Birmingham have only won 1 game since that Sheffield Wednesday game, a 1-0 win against Cardiff thanks to Juninho Bacuna's first half goal. Other games include a 3-3 draw to Plymouth after being 3-1 up by the 70th minute, a 4-2 loss against away at Blackburn and a 3-2 loss against league leaders Leicester at home.

With Birmingham City directors getting annoyed at the lack of positive results, it seemed inevitable that Wayne Rooney would be under harsh critique by the board if they wanted to get back up the league. The start of 2024 bought new changes worldwide, but none to Birmingham as they lost their first game of 2024 3-0 away to Leeds. A final nail in the coffin for Rooney, as after the game he was sacked after only 15 games in charge, with only 2 wins to his name and a 13% win rate. A dark era for Birmingham City, from fourth in the table to 20th, only six points away from the relegation zone with a crucial league game at home to Swansea coming up, just after an FA cup tie away to Hull City.

For Birmingham City fans, this season is not like any other because they had the hope at the start of the season that this could be the season where they can go back to the Premier League, but now it looks more like a League One tour then anything else. Birmingham would need a miracle to get back to the spot they were at the start of the season, but they need to find a manager that can do so. They are lucky because of the managers that are available, such as Steve Cooper who have shown their quality and their ability to get teams to the Premier League. The question is if they are able to entice one of these managers to come to the Midlands and help the Blues go up. Birmingham do have a squad to at least challenge for playoffs, but some poor managerial choices have left this team scrambling down the bottom of the table. This has to be a good year for the Blues or else they may finally be pulled down into League One, a place where they have been alluding for years,