Birmingham’s downward spiral began when manager John Eustace was sacked, despite leading the Blues to sixth place in October 2023. His replacement, Rooney, lasted just 15 games before being given the boot in January and a few months later, they were relegated to League One to cap off a miserable season. Now, stopper Ruddy has lifted the lid on the troubles Rooney ran into when taking over from Eustace at St Andrew’s – a club part-owned by NFL icon Tom Brady.

• WHAT JOHN RUDDY SAID

  On ‘Fozcast – The Ben Foster podcast’, he said: “What John [Eustace] had done over that year and a bit was build a squad who he knew would be competitive physically and get around the pitch. We weren’t an expansive football team but I don’t think we could have been. We went to Peterborough in pre-season and tried to play great football and we were 3-0 in 20 minutes against a very good Peterborough team. I think John quickly realised that we needed a solid foundation to build off, if you’ve got a good defence and we’re going, ‘Right, we’re going to make sure we don’t concede too many and then we’ve got pace and quality going forward’. And that’s what we had, a good balance.
  “Wayne [Rooney] came in… the club put out this ‘no fear brand of football’ which I have got no idea what that means and I still don’t. Wayne came in and tried to implement a style of play that was more possession-based, building from the back, with the same players. After the second game we played Hull [City] at home and we lost 2-0 and I said in the changing room afterwards, ‘We are not where you [Rooney] need us to be at this moment. I don’t think we’re good enough to play your style of football. If we work at it and you’re coaching it, I have got no doubt we will be’. But it was going to take a lot of work and nailing down specific information and roles for every individual. I don’t think we did enough of it personally.”
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