In January, John O’Shea departed from Birmingham City, lamenting the lack of a transfer window to rectify the team’s shortcomings under the management of Wayne Rooney, who had been fired. Following Rooney’s replacement of John Eustace in October of last year, Blues saw a sharp decline in their standings, falling from the top six into the bottom third of the Championship.
As part of his overhaul of the club’s backroom staff, Rooney brought in former Manchester United teammate O’Shea and former England colleague Ashley Cole. However, Blues’ results suffered following the management change, and the board took action following the team’s crushing defeat at Leeds United on New Year’s Day. This choice gave Tony Mowbray, Rooney’s successor, time to enter the market as soon as he was hired.
To increase Mowbray’s options in the midfield, Blues moved to add Paik Seung-ho and Andre Dozzell. They also brought in Championship-savvy Alex Pritchard, who Mowbray had previously worked with at Sunderland. The Blues’ performance started to pick up until Mowbray became ill. Following a six-game stint under Mark Venus, Gary Rowett was brought back to lead the team for the rest of the season.
After two wins in 15 games abruptly put an end to plans that the Blues’ goal would be a long-term project, O’Shea, who has since taken interim charge of the Republic of Ireland in their friendly matches against Belgium and Switzerland in March as he looks to branch out into management himself, regretted that he and Rooney had missed the chance to recruit and improve the squad.
Leave a Reply