Birmingham City have been told who their next ideal manager appointment might be.
Birmingham City are on the hunt for their next manager after sacking Wayne Rooney this week, with several exciting names already in the running.
Reims boss Will Still and Paul Heckingbottom are two names being linked, with fired Nottingham Forest boss Steve Cooper also mentioned, along with the former Southampton boss Ralph Hasenhuttl.
Ex-Sunderland boss Tony Mowbray though is a name doing the rounds; he was recently let go by Sunderland despite the club being in 6th place of the Championship table, and pundit Dougie Critchley has had his say on Mowbray potentially heading to St Andrew’s this month.
Dougie Critchley says Tony Mowbray to Birmingham City makes sense
Sky Sports pundit and Sunderland fan Critchley has had his say on 60-year-old Mowbray and whether or not he’d be a good fit for Birmingham City.
He said:
“He actually did, I think, a really underrated job there [Sunderland], because we only got out of League One the year before last, through the play-offs, and got us to 6th in the Championship. No one really expected the youngest team in the Championship, with one of the smallest budgets, and had to take over without a summer window because Alex Neil deserted us to go to Stoke. So Tony Mowbray I think did a brilliant job last season.
“He was fired when we were 6th this year, replaced by Michael Beale which seems like potentially quite a risky decision given how well we did last year, but he’s [Mowbray] got a number of experiences working on clubs at the very top of the game or at the top of their respective leagues like Celtic, and clubs that are trying to get back to former glories like Sunderland and Coventry. So Tony Mowbray feels like a sensible appointment for Birmingham.”
Mowbray would be a huge upgrade on inexperienced Wayne Rooney
Whether Rooney was given enough time or not, he failed to show any tactical improvement from when he was last in the Championship with Derby County.
Mowbray meanwhile has very recent experience of Championship football; not only that, but like Critchley says, he overachieved with Sunderland last season.
His Black Cats side were plagued by injuries throughout the last campaign and yet Mowbray still managed to make promotion candidates out of his team, so that’s definitely a trait he could translate to a Birmingham City side decimated by injury.
And in Blues’ current position, they need a manager with experience and there’s few out there with as much experience as Mowbray, who’s had stints in charge of all of Hibernian, West Brom, Celtic, Middlesbrough, Coventry City, Blackburn Rovers, and Sunderland.
So for Birmingham City, not only in the situation they’re in but going forward as a club who wants to play good, attacking football and at the right end of the Championship table, Mowbray seems like more than a safe bet.
Blues face Hull City away from home in the FA Cup this weekend, before returning to league duties at home vs Swansea City the following weekend.