Birmingham City: Gary Rowett, Paul Robinson And Dave Carolan Return To Steady The Ship For Blues

On the 19th of March, 2024, the club made an announcement to Blues fans regarding Tony Mowbray’s medical leave and Gary Rowett’s return as Interim Manager. 

Mowbray will take a formal medical leave of absence until the start of pre-season 2024/25.

The Club appointed Rowett, with immediate effect for the remaining eight games of the season.

Assistant Manager, Mark Venus, will also take a leave of absence with immediate effect and rejoin the Club at the same time as Mowbray.  First Team Coaches, Ashley Cole and Peter Shuttleworth, and Goalkeeper Coach, Maik Taylor, will remain at the Club as part of Rowett’s coaching staff.

Once again I say to Tony get well soon and here’s to a speedy recovery for him and thank you to Mark for his efforts in trying his best to get results for Blues to push them further up the table, unfortunately, that wasn’t too be with only one point out of six matches in charge.   

Here is what I wrote regarding our recent form in the Championship.  I said then it was a bad idea to get a manager in to replace Mowbray if he didn’t return for the Q.P.R. game.  We now know that isn’t going to happen and, no disrespect to Venus, he wasn’t up to the task of managing the team.  That wasn’t all his fault though and the players need to have a good hard stare at themselves in the mirror and see that most of them are not good enough for this club unless they give 100% every match.  They only need to look at Lukas Jutkiewicz for inspiration.  With all this in mind, hiring Rowett is a wise decision by Tom Wagner. 

As a former Blues player and manager, Rowett knows the club well.  He took over in October 2014 when we were struggling following an embarrassing defeat to Bournemouth at home when we lost 8-0.  In just five games in charge under Rowett Blues looked like a completely different team gaining eleven points from fifteen.  It would be amazing to have a similar outcome in the remaining eight games he is in charge.  Will it happen? Time will tell. 

Birmingham City fans are used to relegation scraps and always hope for a bit of luck that we will be safe when we are struggling at the bottom of the table.  We certainly have ridden our luck a lot over the previous seasons but one day our luck will run out.  There were certainly signs lately that it was already starting to happen but loyal Blues fans will never give up hope because that is part of our D.N.A. in supporting this great team.  

I still believe we won’t go down, especially now with Rowett in charge. If we do finish on a high there will be a minority of “fans” who will inevitably shout to the rooftops for him to stay and Mowbray to go but they need to remember Rowett’s job is only temporary and Mowbray is our boss and he should not be disrespected.  They need to have complete faith in what his plans are for the club in the 2024/25 season and get behind his decisions as the majority of true fans will.  

In Tony Mowbray we trust.