BRUSH UP YOUR ACT
Cotterill told flop players: When you clean your teeth..think of how badly you let fans down
STEVE COTTERILL went into Birmingham’s dressing room to deliver some home truths to their flops even before he officially took charge.
He was in the stands at Hull on Saturday for Blues’ embarrassing 6-1 capitulation ahead of starting work yesterday as their new boss.
He becomes 22nd-placed Birmingham’s fourth manager in a year, and City CEO Xuandong Ren revealed Cotterill wasted no time giving his verdict to the players on the Hull shambles.
Ren said: “We feel for the fans after the result at Hull, which we apologise for.
“Our fans did not deserve that. It is absolutely not acceptable. We went to the dressing room and said exactly the same thing to the players.
“Steve told the dressing room, ‘Tonight, when you brush your teeth, take a long look at yourself in the mirror and think about if the fans deserve your performance, which was totally a disaster’.”
Cotterill is back at St Andrew’s after helping the club stay up as assistant to Harry Redknapp in Blues’ final three games last term. But Cotterill then walked in frustration at Redknapp opting to sign a £1.7million-ayear deal rather than moving upstairs and elevating him to the helm, as mooted.
This season has been a shambles without Cotterill, but he will be back in the dugout again a week on Friday at home. He said: “I didn’t go down there ranting and raving at Hull.
“We’ve got to get in the boat and make sure we all row in the same direction and put the same amount of effort in and then we’ll climb the table and we can see where we are in a few months’ time.
“The short-term and immediate task is to get us out of that relegation zone.
“I want to get the football club to be a hard-working, healthy, competitive, cohesive and disciplined environment.
“I want to get everybody together with a way of playing and team spirit. We play Cardiff next. It is a great game to start with – I couldn’t have picked a better one.”
Cotterill has had five promotions in spells with Cheltenham, Stoke, Burnley, Notts County, Portsmouth, Nottingham Forest and Bristol City.
Ren quipped: “Steve knows the league so well with five promotions – we just need one!
“Harry Redknapp said when all of our players are fit we would finish above Aston Villa this season – and I couldn’t agree more.”