Wayne Rooney: Can former England and Manchester United striker become ‘world class’ manager Birmingham expect?

Stephen Vickers will tell you Wayne Rooney has already left his mark at St Andrew’s. 

On Boxing Day in 2002, two months after his 17th birthday, Everton’s boy wonder was a second-half substitute but lasted just 15 minutes on the pitch after a reckless lunge on the veteran defender, who needed eight stitches in a badly gashed ankle.

David Elleray didn’t hesitate in dishing out a stern lesson. It was the first of 15 games Rooney would play against Birmingham City during his career, losing on just one occasion.

Rooney was the country’s great hope and its youngest Premier League goalscorer back then, but he returns to the second city as a man with a point to prove.

Birmingham spoke of their board needing to be fully aligned in ‘creating a winning mentality and a culture of ambition across the entire football club’.

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As Wayne Rooney becomes the new manager at Birmingham City, relive his first career red card for Everton in a 1-1 draw on 26 December 2002

The Blues, sixth in the Championship, have turned to a once-world-class player in search of the ‘world-class manager’ who can create an ‘identity’ and ‘no-fear’ playing style.

The jury is still out over whether Rooney is capable of fulfilling this ambition. On the one hand, one of the country’s most decorated players was always at some stage going to return from his adventures in the United States.

Returning at Championship-level, too, at a respected club that has been unfashionable and almost forgotten to some extent resembles the perfect pairing.

And yet, Rooney is immediately under pressure by taking a seat that has been warmed for him by a popular predecessor.

Image: Wayne Rooney left DC United at the weekend

There will be plenty who wish only well of England’s second all-time record goalscorer – but sympathy for Birmingham City will be in short supply if this high-profile appointment destabilises the solid foundations John Eustace put in place.

The club have been here before, of course. Back in December 2016, Gary Rowett was sacked when the club were sitting seventh in the Championship – outside the play-offs on goal difference.

The owners turned to Gianfranco Zola to bring in a supposedly better style of football, but they very nearly got relegated. Zola won two games in 24, finishing three points outside the drop zone when he was sacked.

Birmingham chief executive Garry Cook blamed “misalignment” for the circumstances that led to Eustace’s sacking but has vowed to make the club “a football powerhouse” – all the woolly terms and intangibles that emerge from a marketing meeting, spider diagrams and copious supplies of Starbursts.

Image: John Eustace was sacked after 15 months in charge

Eustace leaves St Andrew’s with his stock high, but Rooney must now show he has the credentials to succeed in a dug-out where mitigating factors for failure are fewer.

“My executive team are aware that we are aspiring to be world class, but it takes more than words,” said Cook.

His point, despite Birmingham’s 12-year hiatus from the Premier League, is that managers should perhaps be judged more than on just points-per-game. Owners have licence to feel a vibe from daily conversations behind closed doors.

With Rooney, he emerged with quite a lot of credit from the Derby County job despite taking them down to League One following a 21-point deduction. Under difficult circumstances, he performed incredibly well.

Between late November and mid-February during the 2020/21 season, Rooney accrued 31 points from a possible 54 in his 18 games in sole charge.

He was even tipped to replace Neil Lennon as Celtic manager following his resignation. Rooney showed his allegiance to the club the following campaign despite Everton’s interest and Derby being plunged into administration.

Wayne Rooney’s managerial record:

Derby: November 2020 – June 2022 P85 W24 D22 L29 – 28 per cent win ratio

DC United: July 2022 – October 2023 P53 W14 D13 L26 – 26 per cent win ratio

On both occasions, he might have jumped at opportunities when still discovering himself as a manager. Biding his time for the head coach role at DC United was a natural fit given his status in Major League Soccer, out of the spotlight and this time without his family.

In July 2022 when Rooney took charge at Audi Field, DC United sat bottom of the MLS table, and ended the campaign as the worst team in the league with only 27 points and a record of seven wins, six draws and 21 defeats.

In his first – and now only – full season, Rooney improved the team but mutually agreed to terminate his contract after DC United failed to make the MLS play-offs.

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Wayne Rooney says he feels it is the right time to return to England after he left his position at D.C United. Rooney has been linked with the vacant Birmingham position and is open-minded to any managerial opportunity

“It’s been a mixed bag,” The Athletic’s MLS reporter Pablo Maurer told Sky Sports. “DC United haven’t typically been one of Major League Soccer’s premier clubs.

“They’re a bit thrifty and certainly there have been one or two institutional challenges there. So it’s tough to actually know what to make of Rooney’s time here.

“What I would say is that this season’s roster was strong enough to make the play-offs. He had some weaknesses as a manager too. Between DC United and his time at Derby, which had its own special set of circumstances with the transfer ban – I’m still not sure what to make of Wayne Rooney, the manager.

“When he arrived at DC, he came in and wanted to do things ‘the right way’, playing possession-based football, dictating play with a lot of the ball. But I think he realised pretty quickly that he didn’t have the talent on that roster to execute that vision.

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Sky Sports’ Rob Dorsett gives an analysis on the current situation at Birmingham City after the ‘strange decision’ to sack former head coach John Eustace, with the club targeting ‘box office’ Wayne Rooney

“He then moved away to something more direct and focused on being more sound in the middle of the park and played with five at the back.

“For a while, up until the middle of the current season, DC United were mid-table and playing pretty well. They then lost a few key players in the summer window and the team have suffered from injuries.”

During an appearance on Monday Night Football in April 2022, Rooney revealed it was his dream to one day manage Manchester United or Everton, and so being tasked with taking Birmingham back to the Premier League club is a sizeable project that brings that ambition into sharper focus than a lucrative offer from Saudi Arabia.

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Wayne Rooney discusses his managerial ambitions, which involve managing Everton and Manchester United

In announcing his departure, Rooney said: “I’ve really enjoyed my time here. I’ve had a lot of great help from the owners. I just feel like it’s the right time for me to go back to England, first to obviously see my family. I haven’t seen them for a long time.”

Washington Post football writer Steven Goff told Sky Sports: “Inevitably, he was going to return to England to coach. His family stayed behind when he took this job, whereas when he was a player over here, the family came over.

“I feel that’s a big part of it, but he saw MLS and DC United as a stepping stone to something bigger in Europe. He had a short-term contract so he wasn’t going to stay here forever.

“So it makes a lot of sense that he and DC have parted ways. The supporters here have become disenchanted by management and ownership and not by those who are coaching the team. The failure of the team in recent years has been blamed largely on the front office.

“Even though Wayne didn’t have a lot of success here, when he came in last year the team was a mess. There was blame on him for that, but this year the expectations were a little higher and it’s not very difficult to make the play-offs.

“From that standpoint, he fell short, but there are deeper concerns about the organisation, how much money is invested in the team and selections. So Rooney’s reputation remains intact, more so for his playing days.”

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Birmingham City’s decision to part company with John Eustace amid a link with Wayne Rooney was criticised by both Jason Burt of The Telegraph and Mark Ogden from ESPN on Back Pages Tonight

Birmingham have emphasised the importance of the January transfer window in confirming Rooney’s appointment, which is in sharp contrast to his time at DC United, where you play with what you have. With an unbalanced squad, Rooney often played pragmatic with a back three and Christian Benteke as the focal point.

“Everything went through Benteke,” Goff added. “It’s the style they ended up playing. It wasn’t free-flowing, Tiki-taka. It was about launching balls to Benteke and having his team-mates play off him.

“Wayne instructed his goalkeepers to be very aggressive by coming out of the box and acting almost like a sweeper-keeper, which worked to a certain extent before their No 1 got injured. So there are clues as to how he likes to play, but it certainly depends on the players you have.”

Rooney’s pulling power brought in Benteke, but also Ravel Morrison – on the manager’s insistence. Morrison was made the club’s fifth highest-paid player only to be left out of the 2023 squad.

Not without his own flaws, Rooney will be aware he is joining a club that have brought fanfare by having a figurehead globally recognised in NFL quarterback Tom Brady as a minority owner. To his credit, Birmingham’s new boss has never done pizzazz in spite of playing for one of the world’s biggest clubs and his time Stateside.

But the Wrexham Effect, where high-profile names equate to profit and open doors to TV documentaries, cannot be a driving factor if Rooney’s name is to be remembered beyond his glittering playing career.

As a manager, Rooney didn’t quite emulate his finest moment as an MLS player – his tackle and assist in the dying embers of a game against Orlando City. Birmingham City fans will hope his time at St Andrew’s lasts longer than when the red mist descended during his first cameo.

Rooney’s first six fixtures:

October 21: Middlesbrough vs Birmingham – kick-off 3pm

October 25: Birmingham vs Hull – kick-off 7.45pm, live on Sky Sports Football Red Button

October 28: Southampton vs Birmingham – kick-off 12.30pm, live on Sky Sports Football

November 4: Birmingham vs Ipswich – kick-off 3pm

November 11: Sunderland vs Birmingham – kick-off 12.30pm, live on Sky Sports Football

November 25: Birmingham vs Sheffield Wednesday – kick-off 3pm

Rooney still has it all to prove in management

Sky Sports EFL Editor Simeon Gholam:

“Wayne Rooney gained plenty of plaudits for his work at Derby County. In his first managerial role he was right up against it, dealing with administration, a 21-point deduction, and a squad hardly worthy of the Championship made up of academy graduates and free transfers.

“The Derby fans were won over by his commitment, open communication and battling style, and it’s worth noting that they picked up enough points in his one full campaign in charge to finish 17th. To keep them in the hunt for safety until mid-April was near enough a miraculous effort.

“It is one thing, however, to stand up and out when you are facing every type of adversity football can throw at you, it is another altogether to take a club moving in the right direction at last further up the Championship tree.

“And speaking of trees, Rooney hardly pulled any of them up in his spell at DC United. Were he not the name he is, it is hard to imagine anything on his managerial CV being enough to convince the new Birmingham owners that he has earned the chance to replace John Eustace at St Andrew’s.

“The 37-year-old still has plenty to prove.”

Shared ambition makes Rooney and Birmingham the perfect pairing

Sky Sports News senior reporter Rob Dorsett:

“Wayne Rooney and Birmingham City are the perfect pairing right now. Both at a crucial crossroads, and each having big ambitions for the future.

“The sacking of John Eustace has been explained by Birmingham’s chief executive, Garry Cook, who says the previous head coach was “misaligned” with the club’s leadership team, on a number of key points.

“Cook is trying to keep the Birmingham support on-side, knowing the sacking is unpopular with a significant proportion of them, who don’t see Rooney – who has only taken charge of struggling Derby County so far in England – as a managerial upgrade.

“After all, under Eustace, Birmingham reached sixth in the Championship, and have taken six points and scored seven goals in their last two Championship matches. A harsh sacking, for sure.

“But when you realise that the plan to recruit Rooney stretches back several weeks – when Blues took only one point from three matches against Preston, QPR and Norwich – Birmingham’s bosses think it is easier to justify and explain their decision.

“It was inevitable. Eustace knew it. New club owners like to bring in their own people in key positions.

“And when you look at the mission statement of owner Tom Wagner when his Knighthead Capital Management group bought Birmingham three months ago, the recruitment of Rooney should come as no surprise.”

Read Rob Dorsett’s full analysis of why Rooney is the perfect fit for Birmingham