“Intelligent footballing mind” – Birmingham City hire highly-rated 42-year-old as boss: The verdict

This article is part of Football League World’s ‘The Verdict‘ series, which provides personal opinions from the FLW writers regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

In a somewhat surprising turn of events, Birmingham City sacked Lee Bowyer over the weekend. 

The announcement came on Saturday, with the Blues wasting no time in announcing his successor – former Watford captain John Eustace as his replacement.

This is the 42-year-old’s first EFL manager’s job, having previously managed at Kidderminster Harriers, and been an assistant at Queens Park Rangers.

With the above in mind, we asked three of our writers here at FLW what they made of events in Birmingham over the weekend.

This is an interesting one, but it does feel like there are many managers available, who are capable of turning the tide, and avoiding relegation to League One, under the current ownership.

Bowyer proved himself as a capable fire-fighter in keeping the Blues up in 2020/21, and maintaining their second tier status, aided by points deductions last term, where Eustace is unproven as the main figure in the dugout.

Some fresh ideas will probably be good for the squad after a very poor second half to the season, but whether that will be enough to keep them in the Championship is another question altogether.

The Blues have a higher ceiling next season under Eustace but also a lower floor, unless the new manager is given the personnel to get his methods across quickly, the latter seems the more likely outcome.

It appears that Birmingham’s decision to sack Lee Bowyer was lingering for a long time before it actually came to fruition.

Although not necessarily doing an awful job when reflecting on the external