Matt Maher: Wayne Rooney will be under pressure from the off at Birmingham City
A frequent claim heard this week, from those defending Blues’ decision to replace John Eustace with Wayne Rooney, is the club’s new owners know what they are doing.
It’s impossible to be sure.
While Tom Wagner and his Knighthead Capital associates are clearly successful businessmen who have big ambitions, in football terms they are novices with only three months experience in the bank. Nothing is ever guaranteed in a sport with a track for making those with the sharpest business minds appear foolish. Just ask Todd Boehly.
To succeed, Wagner and Co need guidance and in this case it has been provided by Garry Cook, their appointment as chief executive who, by chance, has a long-standing relationship with Paul Stretford, Rooney’s agent. With ownership apparently keen to make a big-name appointment, it does not take a genius to work out how the events of the past few days came to be.
A big name doesn’t automatically mean better. Would things have panned out quite so well for Villa had Thierry Henry, their No.1 choice to replace Steve Bruce following Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens’ 2018 takeover, taken the job?
That’s not to say Rooney can’t or won’t be a success. He did well at Derby in near impossible circumstances, while there is substantial mitigation for why things did not pan out with DC United. But he’s never taken a job where the expectations are so high as this.
The inference, from the various statements made by the club and Cook this week, is the ownership want success sooner rather than later. Or at least, quicker than they expected Eustace to deliver.
What’s bizarre about the timing is Eustace appeared to have the club on an upward curve, having spent his first season laying the foundations and restoring a dressing room spirit which had decayed under his predecessors.
Supporter expectations, prior to the past week, were realistic. A mid-table finish, after years spent scuttling near the bottom of the Championship, would have been viewed as acceptable progress.
Sacking Eustace with the team sixth in the table changes that. Rooney will be backed but results expected. With a popular manager having been axed to allow his arrival, there will be little room for excuses.
