Birmingham City fans would hope this appointment would see an instant return to the Championship happen.
Given that Tony Mowbray is now stepping down, Birmingham City supporters will only want a familiar face in the St. Andrew’s dugout for the upcoming campaign.
In spite of having aspirational new American owners in the background, whomever does take over as manager after the former Sunderland player will have their work cut out for them trying to revitalise the Blues, who have dropped to League One for the first time in 29 years.
Birmingham was hoping to stave off a swarm of teams from the league above vying for the in-demand 39-year-old by trying to entice former Hull City manager Liam Rosenior to St. Andrew’s, as Football Insider first revealed last week.
Rumours have been circulating that Rosenior isn’t interested in the League One post, despite the fact that Sunderland and Plymouth Argyle are also certain that Rosenior should be their next manager. This information comes from football journalist Alan Nixon via his Patreon.
After being controversially fired from his position at the MKM Stadium for leading Hull to a respectable seventh place finish, Rosenior is presumably holding out for a job in the league above. The people in charge at Birmingham will just need to hope they can convince Rosenior of their vision and project in order to pull off this coup.
The Championship Manager of the Season nominee, who has previously excelled in League One under Rooney and in his own role as Derby’s temporary manager, might very well embrace the prospect of leading the Blues back to their past glory if he were to eventually be sold on being Mowbray’s replacement.
Liam Rosenior’s Derby record
Subtly handling his business following Rooney’s departure, Rosenior helped the Rams stay afloat at the beginning of the 2022–2023 season in Derbyshire, even before Paul Warne arrived from Rotherham United.
That brief employment appeared to have a significant impact, as noted by Sky Sports analyst Clinton Morrison, who said, “I genuinely believe he’s a top manager.” At Derby, I talked to a few folks. The players admired him, thus it was unfortunate that he lost his position. He’s among the greatest coaches in history.
Given that Birmingham has seen such ups and downs in recent years due to a frequent turnover of managers leaving the building, he may be the perfect manager to bring stability to the team right now.
| Birmingham managers over the last five years | |
|---|---|
| Manager | Time spent in the job |
| Gary Rowett | 19th March 2024 – now |
| Mark Venus | 4th March 2024 – 19th March 2024 |
| Tony Mowbray | 7th January 2024 – 4th March 2024 |
| Wayne Rooney | 11th October 2023 – 2nd January 2024 |
| John Eustace | 3rd July 2022 – 9th October 2023 |
| Lee Bowyer | 16th March 2021 – 2nd July 2022 |
| Aitor Karanka | 31st July 2020 – 16th March 2021 |
| Steve Spooner | 10th July 2020 – 31st July 2020 |
| Josep Clotet Ruiz | 18th June 2020 – 10th July 2020 |
| Sourced by Soccerbase | |
After going through an absurd nine managers in the previous five years, and with Rowett poised to step down after replacing Mowbray as interim manager, Birmingham will be hoping that taking a chance on Rosenior pays off.
With just three League One losses from these games and a 58.3% win percentage, the 39-year-old proved himself at Hull, which would put him in a solid position to succeed at Birmingham. He also won seven of the 12 games he managed to take interim command of the Rams.
Described as doing a “superb” job with the Tigers before his dismissal by Arsenal legend Ray Parlour, with the former Rams face a success in initially securing survival for Hull in his first season before nearly making the playoffs, Birmingham would certainly make a statement getting Rosenior in if they can.
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