Next Birmingham Manager Odds: Seven potential replacements for Wayne Rooney

Wayne Rooney was dismissed as Birmingham boss on Tuesday after two wins in 15 matches saw his side slide from 6th to 20th in the Championship.

The Blues are now looking for their third manager of the season and we have EFL pundit Gab Sutton on hand to examine seven candidates for the job.

1. Steve Cooper

There has been mixed reporting from Sky Sports News on the likelihood of Steve Cooper taking charge at St Andrews.

Having been one of the first names initially linked, they hinted on Tuesday that Cooper was unlikely to want to take a Championship job at this stage, and that he’d prefer to hold out for a Premier League opportunity.

As Mark McAdam said on Wednesday, though, Cooper is now the 10/11 favourite and as such, can’t be ignored.

The Welshman led Swansea to successive top six finishes, then took Nottingham Forest from having accrued four points from their first eight under Chris Hughton, sitting bottom of the table, to fourth spot and a Play-Off Final victory over Huddersfield, before keeping them up the following season.

That promotion-winning Forest side played with real gusto and intent, while his Swansea team were more cautious, stringent and methodical, which shows Cooper’s tactical flexibility.

He can galvanize people, too, and very quickly mould a struggling team into a successful one.

2. Jesse Marsch

Jesse Marsch has fantastic people skills, and the ability to make players feel valued as human beings as well as footballers.

After Wayne Rooney had called out a lot of his players publicly, Marsch’s motivational qualities would be welcomed.

Doubts linger, however, over him as a tactician.

The 50-year-old can excel when he already has a squad suited to his extreme, high-pressing style, having twice won the Austrian league and cup double with Red Bull Salzburg.

At Leeds, however, he made a team that did it’s best work making the pitch as wide as possible operate very narrowly, which restricted them and was a factor behind their relegation in 2022-23.

If Marsch is backed to bring in the players who suit his ideas, it might work, and the likes of Cody Drameh, Lee Buchanan, and Jordan James already do, while Blues’ ability to create chances after stealing the ball high up had been one of the more positive aspects of Wayne Rooney’s reign. 

3. Tony Mowbray

Tony Mowbray is an experienced, reliable Championship manager, who seems to have carved a niche in recent years of taking a freshly promoted side and establishing them as regular Play-Off contenders.

It’s almost the best you could ask, at a level where automatic promotion can often feel off-limits to anyone without parachute payments, albeit with a handful of exceptions.

And, while the 60-year-old may get externally pigeonholed, he’s more tactically flexible than most of his age range and can coach a progressive style, with the ability to nurture young talent.

As such, Mowbray might be an appealing option for Blues if they wish to grow to become a reliable, top 10 side over the next 2-3 years.

Two stumbling blocks, however, would be that the Saltburn-born boss may want to be in the north-east for family reasons, and he may lack the prestige to appeal to the owners.

4. John Eustace

Perhaps John Eustace has an ‘applicants’ entrance to his house and an adjacent ‘supplicants’ entrance to a shallow, sooty tunnel, standing on the other side of the latter waiting to say to Birmingham City, “so, you’ve come crawling back, eh?”.

The Simpsons references aside, Eustace has got the best out of this group of players before, when the team was flying high in 6th after October’s 3-1 derby victory over West Brom, and they already have a rapport with him which means a heavy January recruitment drive is less of a necessity.

And, considering the club signed 12 players in the summer, that might be an attraction to the board – but it’s also a board that value perception and branding.

It’s one thing to acknowledge that mistakes have been made, which you’d hope they do in forthcoming communications, quite another to literally go back to the person you sacked – there’d be a comical element to it that would take some humility to get through.

And, for a club that was so PR focused that they sacked a manager doing a great job in order to appoint an international football legend, it feels like a bit of a stretch.

5. Ralph Hasenhuttl

Ralph Hasenhuttl has delivered 16th, 11th and two 15th-placed Premier League finishes with Southampton, a reasonable return when considering he didn’t enjoy the same advantages in terms of ownership as the likes of Mauricio Pochettino and Ronald Koeman.

When David Horseman was appointed Forest Green Rovers head coach in the summer, he said in his first interview that Hasenhüttl is the best coach he’d ever seen “by a million miles”.

Horseman praised the Austrian for the detail he provided, his ability to stamp a clear playing identity on his side and the way every training session links, something he hadn’t seen from other British coaches.

The 56-year-old has been out of work since leaving the Saints, and could be open to a Championship opportunity, bringing to it a similar stylistic philosophy to Marsch.

6. Lee Carsley

Lee Carsley is already popular with Birmingham fans: he captained them to promotion in 2008-09, he led them successfully as caretaker in 2017-18, and had the moral decency to resign as assistant when Steve Cotterill was sacked that season.

The 49-year-old has since done excellent work with England Under-20s and 21s, leading the latter to European Championship success last year.

Carsley led Brentford to four straight wins as caretaker in October 2015, after which he was asked by Sky Sports whether he enjoyed managing, and he replied that he enjoyed the coaching.

As such, what has put him off from senior management previously seems to have been the politics, the pressure and everything the job encompasses outside working on the grass, developing players, which seems to be where he’s happiest.

Then again, that was over eight years ago, and Carsley may now have a different view on what he wants from his career.

7. Will Still

Did you know Reims initially paid a €22K fine for every game Will Still managed, because he did not have a UEFA Pro License? Incredible! You might do by now though. 

Les rouges et blancs enjoyed an 19-match unbeaten streak in Ligue 1 under Still’s guidance last season, and the 31-year-old is the youngest manager in Europe’s top five leagues.

The Belgian got the best out of Folarin Balogun, on loan from Arsenal, and compiled a clever high-pressing game plan to nullify PSG in a goalless draw last season.

Still is already a recognisable figure, which may appeal to the hierarchy, but he’s recognisable because of his achievements as a manager.

Still employs a high-pressing style, and brought success at Reims for his switch 5-3-2 to an aggressive 4-2-3-1, while his extensive knowledge of Belgian football has helped them in the recruitment department.

Although Still is Belgian, he is fluent in English to the point one would have guessed it was his mother tongue, his various media and podcast appearances show language is no barrier – nor is age!