Birmingham City: Tom Wagner claims shed light on Tony Mowbray, Wayne Rooney decisions | OneFootball

Birmingham City chairman has discussed why he thinks Birmingham were relegated last season and has suggested he made mistakes.

Birmingham City chairman Tom Wagner has discussed the fact that he believes what prompted their relegation from the Championship to League One last season was as a result of Tony Mowbray falling ill.

The Blues are preparing for life back in the Championship next season, having stormed to the League One title by amassing over 100 points.

It comes off the back of a highly turbulent 2023/24 season in the St Andrew's dugout, as the club went through four different managers last term on the way to suffering second tier relegation: John Eustace, Tony Mowbray, Wayne Rooney and Gary Rowett respectively.

Tom Wagner opens up on Tony Mowbray, Wayne Rooney tenures at Birmingham City

Wagner, the co-founder and co-CEO of Knighthead Capital Management and Birmingham City chairman, has said that what he feels most affected the Blues’ relegation last season were the performances and results that followed Mowbray being diagnosed with cancer and his subsequent departure from the club.

In an interview with The Times, he said: “I think what ultimately caused the club to be relegated was Tony falling ill. The spell of matches just following him having to step back were far and away the worst performance the club had during the season. That was wholly unexpected and a horrible thing.”

Wagner’s decision-making in that first season in charge was called into question, with many believing the decision to replace John Eustace with Wayne Rooney in October 2023 being what ultimately began and led to their downfall.

The 55-year-old has somewhat acknowledged his mistake, though, and alluded to the sacking of Rooney as perhaps being his fault as it may well have been rushed: “A little bit ad hoc, maybe a bit rushed, because we hadn’t had the period over the summer that we wanted to make changes. Certain decisions look mistaken with hindsight,” he said.

“I think it’s hard to step into ownership days before the season begins. If our ambition means that sometimes we stumble along the way, I’ll take the consequences of that.”

When Eustace was sacked by the second city club in October 2023, Birmingham sat sixth in the Championship table, tucked inside the play-off places, and Wagner has said he remains in contact with Eustace: “Nearly every manager we’ve had, I stay in contact with, including John Eustace, who I wish nothing but the very best of success.”

However, it was that decision that prompted the appointment of Rooney, who had done a reasonable job in poor circumstances at Derby before an underwhelming stint as DC United manager.

Rooney was eventually sacked at the turn of the year as Birmingham sank towards the bottom three and the relegation places and that led to the appointment of Mowbray.

However, Mowbray had to step away from the role on medical leave just over a month later, and a couple of days after the Blues had defeated Sunderland by two goals to one at St Andrews.

Wagner believes that is what cost Birmingham their second-tier status as they went on to collect just one point from their next seven matches.

There was a mini-revival towards the end of the season, but it was already too late for Gary Rowett, who had previously been sacked by Birmingham in a similar situation to Eustace with Birmingham seventh and replaced by Gianfranco Zola in the 2016/17 campaign.

Wagner believes there were positives to Birmingham City's relegation

Whilst generally regarded and accepted as simply a bad thing, Wagner did suggest there were positives for Birmingham to take from and build on due to their relegation:

“There’s a bit of a disagreement between myself and Tom Brady as to whether or not there’s a silver lining in the relegation. I think it’s allowed us to establish a winning mentality and culture.

"That’s not just on the pitch. That’s backroom staff, support staff, everybody that works in the club, and maybe most importantly among our supporters, where an expectation of success was something that had not existed for a very long period of time. Changing that mindset was critical.”

Birmingham play their final home game of the season at St Andrews this weekend against Mansfield Town, where they will be presented with the League One trophy.

The Blues, now under the management of Chris Davies, have collected 102 points from their 43 League One games this season after heavy investment last summer and are targeting the all-time EFL points tally of 106, set by Reading in 2006.