Former Birmingham City boss Gary Rowett is out of work following after leaving Millwall last month.
Rowett, 49, is a well-remembered former boss among Birmingham City fans.
He was sacked in December 2016 with the club then sitting in 7th place of the Championship table, only to be replaced by Gianfranco Zola who won two of his eventual 24 games in charge.
Rowett went on to have spells with Derby County, Stoke City, and most recently Millwall where he spent four years, overseeing 196 games.
And the former Blues midfielder has given a recent, in depth and honest interview on the Keep Right On podcast, in which he had his say on this current Birmingham City side,.
As quoted by Birmingham Live, Rowett said:
“What I would say is I looked at Blues’ squad and the first thing that struck me when we played them was they have good energy. They have good energy and good athleticism. One of their strengths early season, I felt, was Sunjic and Bielik in the heart of midfield. It gave them a little platform.”
Ivan Sunjic came back into the fold ahead of this season. He was loaned out to Hertha Berlin last time round after receiving mixed reviews during the 2021/22 season at Birmingham City, and he started well under John Eustace.
Krystian Bielik meanwhile is now a permanent member of the side and often pairs with Sunjic in front of the defence.
The predicament…
Both players are very good, and well-liked; Bielik especially. The Polish international is a key player in the side and whenever he’s absent, it really shows.
But Rowett went on to make an interesting point.
He says that both players are more defensive-minded midfielders, suggesting that having two such midfielders on the pitch means that Blues can’t be this attacking, ‘no fear’ side that Wayne Rooney and the board want them to be.
Rowett said:
“But if you’re asking them to go and play higher up the pitch with lots of space around them, I don’t think that’s their strength. They can sit in there and give you a nice base but they are probably going to sit a little bit deeper and then that is going to mean you will end up being a counter-attacking side.”
Changing what wasn’t broken…
Birmingham City were doing just fine under Eustace.
Whilst the board need slight commendation for having an idea and being somewhat ruthless in their bid to achieve it, they’ve arguably changed something that didn’t need to be changed.
Bringing in Rooney to implement a newfound attacking mentality is fixing an issue that wasn’t broken, and now it could take several transfer windows for the club to have a set of players that can play his way.
Sunjic and Bielik are two very good, Championship-tested midfielders, but Rooney would arguably want two, or at least one attacking-minded central midfielder in the XI, which he doesn’t currently have.
It’s certainly going to be a balancing act between now and January for Rooney, and there’s no guarantee that he’ll even have any spending money.