Wayne Rooney reveals Birmingham City regret & if he's returning to management | OneFootball

The former Manchester United frontman has had an eventful managerial career

Wayne Rooney will go down in history as one of England's greatest ever footballers, but his CV as a manager doesn't shine as brightly as it did as a player.

The 40-year-old was thrust into his first dugout job while he was still playing, taking over a struggling Derby County while still playing for the Championship club in late 2020.

The Rams were bottom under Philip Cocu, and Rooney managed to secure survival on the final day of the 2020/21 campaign, despite an opening few months which led some to believe that he could engineer a mid-table finish.

In the end, his time at Pride Park and the shortcomings of Derby weren't held against him too much, as the Rams were undergoing a period of financial crisis, being docked 21 points during the 2021/22 term and suffering relegation, with the club in administration.

Therefore, when Rooney resigned from his first job in the summer of 2022, there was still some optimism that the former five-time Premier League winner could become one of the next big young managers.

Unfortunately, his time at DC United, where he failed to qualify for the MLS play-offs in both seasons at the helm and then back in the Championship with Birmingham City and Plymouth Argyle, has halted any desire for him to return to management.

Wayne Rooney opens up on his biggest dugout regret and indicates he has no plans to return to management soon

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Given the disastrous terms he oversaw at Birmingham and Plymouth, there won't be many fans who would react positively if they saw Rooney become their new manager. While he wasn't in the dugout when their respective relegations to League One were confirmed, his time at both clubs was a large contributor to them going down.

But that feeling is mutual between the fans and the man himself. Indeed, Rooney has admitted in a Q&A on the BBC website that he can't see himself returning to management anytime soon.

The 40-year-old outlined his biggest managerial regret: taking the Birmingham jobin October 2023. The Blues were in the top six when former boss John Eustace was sacked, so it was seen as a massively controversial decision by the then-new Knighthead ownership.

Replacing Eustace with Rooney at that time raised plenty of eyebrows and arguably put too much pressure on the England legend to succeed.

"I think you always have regrets, and you reflect on what you have done. I've managed four different teams," Rooney said.

"The biggest regret I had was the Birmingham job in terms of the timing when I took over from John Eustace. That was probably my biggest regret.

"Would I return to management? Probably not. Of course, I'm never going to close the door, but at the moment in my headspace, I probably wouldn't."

The Blues won just two of the 15 games that Rooney took charge of, and he was sacked by the club in 20th, 14 places below where they were when he took the job less than three months earlier.

His time at Birmingham is arguably one of the worst single managerial stints in the Championship's history, given the magnitude of the drop in form, so it's understandable that he believes that to be his biggest regret.

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Since being sacked from his final managerial role at Plymouth on New Year's Eve 2024, Rooney has begun to get his feet under the punditry table over the past 18 months.

The 40-year-old has been a regular on BBC Sport, whether that be through podcasts, Match of the Day punditry or being a pundit on live coverage of World Cup match ups this summer. He's also a regular on the Overlap, contributing to debates with fellow former football legends.

While it's still early in his punditry career, Rooney has been the subject of praise from fellow pundits and viewers, too. Evidently, he's having more luck with that so far than he did as a manager.

With an overall win percentage of just over 25%, it's understandable why he hasn't been linked with a dugout return this past season, as his track record doesn't make for good viewing.

And with his time in front of the cameras bringing about more success, he'll be hoping that it won't be long before he's better remembered for that post-retirement, rather than the terrible runs he oversaw in the dugout in the Championship.