By admin The confirmation of Birmingham City’s relegation to England’s third division suggests that the club may finally be approaching a new management.
Blues experience final-day heartache
Birmingham City knew going into the last day of the Championship season that they needed to at least draw to have any chance of surviving, but that Plymouth Argyle, who started the day one point ahead of the Blues, would play a major role in determining their Championship position.
However, Plymouth’s 1-0 victory over Hull City ensured their survival and consigned Birmingham to League One for the upcoming season, adding one last cruel twist to a season in which everything went wrong for Birmingham.
Things were not made any better by their supervisory position. The Blues fired John Eustace and brought in Wayne Rooney, who presided over a sharp downturn in the team’s performance and was fired after just 15 games in command as the team dropped from sixth to twentieth place.
Ironically, he was later appointed coach of Plymouth, and he will be looking to improve on his achievements in England’s second city by succeeding in the south.
A medical problem hindered Tony Mowbray’s return to the manager’s chair, forcing him to step down and have surgery. Gary Rowett took over as temporary manager, but despite an improvement in form, he was unable to keep them from being relegated.
Now that both have resigned, the Blues are searching for a new manager and could have found him.
Alex Neil is leading the pack for the Birmingham job
This coincides with Football Insider’s report that, following what seems to be a fruitful interview, Alex Neil is in the lead to occupy the vacant head coach’s role at St Andrews.
Neil has worked at Norwich, Preston, and Stoke City most recently before being fired in December. He also assisted Sunderland in returning to the Championship. He may now be headed to Birmingham, as the source indicates he has been interviewed, is in “pole position” to take over the position permanently, and has been “earmarked” as the guy who can get the Blues back into the English football league at the first attempt.
Midfielder Alex Pritchard, who collaborated with Neil at Sunderland to help the Black Cats escape League One and who had spoken well of him in 2022, would be pleased with that transfer.
“He tightened things up and stopped us from conceding so many goals when he arrived. He stamped his authority on the place.” He might look at it and conclude that he didn’t need to do anything because there were a lot of positive things here as well.
“Under Lee Johnson, we had a lot of things figured out; it was just a matter of tweaking here and there, which Alex Neil has evidently done. You can see what he has accomplished since coming here that he is an excellent manager.”