TRILLION REASONS ZOLA WAS WRONG
WAs Gianfranco Zola at Birmingham the worst managerial appointment in football history? Think about it. Not just where he left them, but where they started, the good manager they lost, and the timing of Zola’s eventual departure. it really was the whole package.
On the day the clowns at Trillion Trophy Asia sacked their young, talented coach Gary rowett, Birmingham were in seventh place, out of the play-off positions only on goal difference, and three points behind third-placed reading.
They had won three of their last five games, including beating ipswich the night before.
As of this morning, Birmingham are 20th, two places and three points above relegation. They are 29 points off reading; 26 points off the play-off places.
They are also left making hasty, temporary managerial appointments, Zola’s final act being to leave them in the lurch after a 2-0 home defeat by Burton Albion that saw the clubs swap places.
Birmingham’s next game is away at city rivals Aston Villa, followed by a fixture against huddersfield, who are still in with an outside chance of automatic promotion.
harry redknapp is in charge, working without a contract in the hope of landing one at the end of the season, if he can avoid the fall to league One. Zola (right) could hardly have left greater devastation.
Between August 27 and september 17, an interval of 21 days, rowett won more matches with Birmingham than Zola did in over four months. On March 14, rowett was appointed manager of Derby. he has already, in a month, won more games than Zola at Birmingham — indeed, one of them was away at st Andrews.
That he was ditched because he lacked Zola’s international fame and profile shows the shallowness of Birmingham’s new owners. so it is not wholly Zola’s fault.
he inherited a squad as mystified as the rest of football by the dismissal of a bright, popular manager, and worked for a board that made vain, grandiose pledges — the name alone says it all — without the wit to support them.
The humiliation of relegation is no more than they deserve, although redknapp may yet spare them. Certainly, though, Zola’s decision to quit is conclusive proof they got the wrong man.