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Wayne Rooney is set to be sacked by Birmingham City, less than three months after his appointment as manager.
Rooney’s turbulent 15-match reign is to be ended as the Championship club reluctantly take action after an appalling run of results.
The former England and Manchester United captain has lost nine of his 15 matches, winning just two of them, and Birmingham’s board have concluded they have no option but to dismiss him.
Rooney controversially replaced John Eustace in October with the club sixth in the table, but the 3-0 defeat at Leeds on New Years Day leaves them 20th and six points above the relegation zone.
In their last two matches, they registered just one shot on target and fans demanded his dismissal at Elland Road.
The 38 year old’s appointment was hailed as a “defining moment for the football club”, with ambitious owners Knighthead determined to establish Birmingham as a major force in English football.
Yet Rooney’s short tenure has been a bitter disappointment and he departs St. Andrew’s with his reputation having sustained significant damage.
There will also be scrutiny on Birmingham’s chief executive Garry Cook, who drove Rooney’s appointment and initiated the dismissal of Eustace.
Cook, a former chief executive at Manchester City, wanted Rooney to lead a promotion bid and had attempted to persuade him to take a job in the Saudi Pro League before his arrival at Birmingham.
He has made a number of key appointments at executive level, while Mike Rigg is set to join as the club’s new academy manager in April.
The Rooney experiment has failed, however, and supporters vented their anger in the defeat at Elland Road, chanting for him to leave.
Rooney was hoping to boost his squad with new signings in the January transfer window and is understood to have been lining up targets in recent weeks.
He wss keen to rebuild his team after expressing concerns over the ability of the players available to him. He did not think the players could play the style of football he wanted to implement.
Rooney’s comments about wanting to make 11 substitutions after the 3-1 home defeat by Stoke City are said to have triggered frustration in the dressing room.
After the 0-0 draw with Bristol City on December 29, he came under further pressure after the opposing manager, Liam Manning, remarked that Birmingham had set up at home with a low block.
This was far from the “no fear” football that Cook was targeting under Rooney, who left DC United at the end of their season in Major League Soccer.
Birmingham’s owners will now ramp up their search for a new manager, as they move to save their season.
This was not the vision they had in mind under Rooney, one of the Premier League’s iconic figures, and they remain fully committed to taking the club forward.
Rooney now faces an uphill task to salvage his reputation as a manager. On the day of his appointment he pledged to “elevate Birmingham City to the next level” but under his tenure the club were heading out of the division and down to League One.
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