So why was Gary no longer the right man for the job?
BIRMINGHAM City’s decision to part company with Gary Rowett stunned virtually everyone within the game.
Former players and managers, commentators, pundits... everyone seems to have been taken aback by the news.
Not least because this is far from a typical scenario.
Blues are not a team languishing near the foot of the division, theirs is not a squad whose players are demoralised nor had ceased playing for their manager.
Blues are on the fringes of the play-off places – just as they have been for most of the last year and with the transfer window about to open next month they have the opportunity to take that next step.
And this is where we enter the realms of speculation as to why Gianfranco Zola has been appointed.
Since they took over, no-one from Trillion Trophy Asia has given any interviews nor by extension spoken to Birmingham City’s fans.
We have no idea what their thinking is behind the change. So we are left to speculate.
And the January transfer window might have been part of their reasoning. Rowett admitted himself he got it wrong in last season’s January sales. Perhaps they were unwilling to allow him the opportunity to repeat the mistake.
TTA obviously had someone in mind who they perceived could do a better job of spending their investment in a few weeks’ time – and they’ve appointed him.
It could be they had become wearied by the regular speculation linking Rowett with other clubs. He came close to leaving for Fulham a year ago, is forever connected with Derby and was linked to Queens Park Rangers a few weeks ago.
Perhaps that weakened some of the relationships at St Andrew’s.
And maybe it was not so much the results as the performances. It seems a while since Blues out-played anyone. Representatives from TTA have been over to watch some of those games and perhaps they haven’t matched their opinion of what a side aspiring for the Premier League should look like.
Hopefully they understand that takes money and hopefully they understand that takes a skilled operator in the transfer market to spend that money.
Because in parting ways with Gary Rowett and appointing Zola, TTA have said two things.
Firstly, ‘We don’t think you’re the man to take us into the Premier League’. And secondly, ‘We know someone who is’.
Both are bold claims to make and they’ll take some backing up because, to many, Gary Rowett was still the right man for the job.