Why Harry Redknapp Is The Best Thing That Has Happened To Birmingham This Season
It’s all change at Birmingham City these days. Constantly! As for this season, the Blues started out with Gary Rowett in charge only to sack him in December. The fans weren’t happy with this. They replaced him with Gianfranco Zola. The fans weren’t overly happy with this either. Zola’s results were terrible and they sacked Zola.
In mid-April, the club appointed former Tottenham manager and England hopeful Harry Redknapp to take charge of team affairs and they managed to just avoid relegation. Redknapp’s impact though can go further than simply avoiding the dreaded drop to League One.
Birmingham’s season, like many recent seasons, has been dreary. Redknapp coming in is a good thing but frankly, they are lucky. One of the better things to happen to Birmingham is possible because they did one of the weirdest things they could have done and that is sack Gary Rowett. Their former defender has gone on to improve the fortunes of an equally tumultuous Derby County and they are strong promotion candidates now for next season.
Birmingham did need a change of overall direction. Their fans and the general football population have been mistreated for years with rubbish football at St. Andrews. There has been precious little to shout about in terms of results or even in terms of style of play.
Now, Harry Redknapp is no great tactician. There are many examples of this; none more so than back in 2011/12 when Redknapp declared that his Tottenham team were genuine contenders and would challenge for the Premier League title. Though the confidence was admirable, he set himself up for a fall. His side played the two Manchester teams 4 times that season and those games define how good they were as a team and how good Redknapp was as a manager. The result? 4 defeats.
All that being said though, his teams always fly forward and are always good to watch and that is what is needed right now at Birmingham City. With Redknapp in charge, Birmingham may now compete for the same players as Aston Villa and that could develop into quite a second city battle. It’ll be interesting to see how things shape up, especially with ex-Birmingham manager Steve Bruce now in charge at Villa Park.
Wherever they finish next season, Birmingham would be guaranteed to play a better brand of football with Harry Redknapp in charge, which will get people back in the stadium. That has to be a good thing.