- Eustace sacked despite guiding Birmingham to sixth
- Rooney replaced him but lasted just 15 matches
- Ruddy explains why his Blues stint didn’t work out
WHAT HAPPENED?
Birmingham’s downward spiral began when manager John Eustace was sacked, despite leading the Blues to sixth place in October 2023. His replacement, Rooney, lasted just 15 games before being given the boot in January and a few months later, they were relegated to League One to cap off a miserable season. Now, stopper Ruddy has lifted the lid on the troubles Rooney ran into when taking over from Eustace at St Andrew’s – a club part-owned by NFL icon Tom Brady.
WHAT JOHN RUDDY SAID
On ‘Fozcast – The Ben Foster podcast’, he said: “What John [Eustace] had done over that year and a bit was build a squad who he knew would be competitive physically and get around the pitch. We weren’t an expansive football team but I don’t think we could have been. We went to Peterborough in pre-season and tried to play great football and we were 3-0 in 20 minutes against a very good Peterborough team. I think John quickly realised that we needed a solid foundation to build off, if you’ve got a good defence and we’re going, ‘Right, we’re going to make sure we don’t concede too many and then we’ve got pace and quality going forward’. And that’s what we had, a good balance.
“Wayne [Rooney] came in… the club put out this ‘no fear brand of football’ which I have got no idea what that means and I still don’t. Wayne came in and tried to implement a style of play that was more possession-based, building from the back, with the same players. After the second game we played Hull [City] at home and we lost 2-0 and I said in the changing room afterwards, ‘We are not where you [Rooney] need us to be at this moment. I don’t think we’re good enough to play your style of football. If we work at it and you’re coaching it, I have got no doubt we will be’. But it was going to take a lot of work and nailing down specific information and roles for every individual. I don’t think we did enough of it personally.”
THE BIGGER PICTURE
While Ruddy said he got on well with Rooney and revealed his footballing brain was “so advanced”, the former Norwich City goalkeeper outlined perhaps why the ex-England man – who has just become Plymouth Argyle’s new boss – struggled to coach players who weren’t as good as he once was.
He added: “It’s funny because you forget how good a player he was. We are doing this training drill and he says, ‘I just want you to do this’, and he’s taken a touch and pinged this ball over the top and it’s inch-perfect and he’s got Air Force Ones on and you are going, ‘Yeah, that’s the level you are used to, we are not quite there. The lads are struggling to do that in boots’.”
DID YOU KNOW?
Rooney has had three managerial stints during his coaching career and none have gone particularly well. At Derby County, he had a win percentage of 28.2 in 85 games, at D.C. United it was 26.4 in 53 matches, and at Birmingham it was 13.3.
WHAT NEXT?
Rooney, who was unable to keep Derby in the Championship in 2022, will likely link up with his new Plymouth squad in the coming weeks. He and the Green Army will hope the 38-year-old is more successful this time out than with his previous roles.
