Blues vs Wolves: A year of turmoil at St. Andrew's

Twelve months on, Blues have their third manager since then and find relegation to the third tier a very real threat for the first time in two decades.

Gianfranco Zola almost pulled off that feat in less than six months, only to be sacked and replaced by Harry Redknapp on a temporary basis, surviving by the skin of their teeth with two wins from their last three games.

Redknapp was then put in charge permanently for this season and spent in the region of £20million assembling a squad that was straight back into a dogfight.

So out went Redknapp and back came Steve Cotterill, who had assisted Redknapp in the final games of the previous season.

A 6-1 thrashing at the hands of fellow strugglers Hull City was an inauspicious start and only two wins – against Cardiff City and Nottingham Forest – have followed since, although their last outing was a promising 1-1 draw with Wolves’ title rivals Sheffield United.

Although, with everything that’s gone on since Rowett’s shock axing, Cotterill knows things won’t change on the back of one draw.

“It’s not something that’s going to change overnight and, it’s not something that’s going to change over one result and I wouldn’t want it to change over one result,” said Cotterill in his pre-match press conference on Friday.

“For me, there’s got to be a balance that when the football club goes from losing games on a more regular basis to winning games on a regular basis, you’ve got to make sure there’s an even keel in and around the place and to be hard working and humble.

“It’s easy to be humble when you’re getting beat but the true class is you’re humble when you’re winning.”

There was also plenty of chat about Wolves’ transfer dealing. Cotterill believes they have had it ‘pretty easy’ in the transfer market thanks to the influence of Jorge Mendes.

But he also recognises he’ll face a side in fine form with Wolves having won their previous five to top the Championship table.

“I’m expecting to see a confident team because their scorelines and their results have suggested that,” added Cotterill. “But we’ve already played teams in the top half.

“By the time we play Wolves on Monday that will be six games out of the nine for me where they’ve been in the top nine or something like that. The top four, we’ve played all of them come Monday night.

“It hasn’t been an easy run of games anyway. It’s been a run of tough games. We’ll treat Wolves with the respect they deserve but hopefully not too much on Monday night.”