Birmingham City Chairman Tom Wagner Reveals A Startling Development

Tom Wagner, the chairman of Birmingham City, has alluded to the fact that the team erred in October when it decided to fire manager John Eustace.

Under the 44-year-old’s leadership, the Blues had experienced their finest start to a season in years, and a 3-1 victory against bitter rivals West Bromwich Albion had put them in the play-off spots. But that triumph also happened to coincide with Wayne Rooney’s decision to resign from his position at D.C. United, which prompted the board to move quickly to bring the former England striker to St Andrew’s.

The fan base didn’t agree with the decision, and their worries were eventually validated when the team started to lose ground. With the squad behind in 20th place, Rooney’s tenure proved disastrous, as he won just two of his 15 games in command before being fired as well.

After that, Tony Mowbray was brought in, and his performance improved until his health required that he take a leave of absence. Although the West Midlands squad has had two different managers since then—Mark Venus and Gary Rowett—they are currently very much in danger of falling into League One.

Birmingham now have five games to salvage their Championship status. They sit in the final relegation place having won just one of their last nine fixtures.

Eustace’s departure now seems like a real-life sliding doors moment, one in which Wagner admits was probably the wrong call:

“We made one decision that if we were to go back in time we wouldn’t have made,” he said, via the Daily Mail. “I don’t think we can ever ensure every decision we make will be a perfect one. 

“There were some good lessons learned with some of the decisions we’ve made this year and there have been substantial learnings about how we think about making important decisions on the sporting side.

“In the context of having made thousands of decisions for the club this season, we made one that wasn’t perfect.”

Whereas their former bosses aren’t named, the report states that there is a regret surrounding their decision to bring in Rooney at a time when the club was in a healthy position.

Birmingham host Cardiff City tomorrow in what is considered a must-win game.