By James Burch
By the time Birmingham City re-start their Championship campaign in nine days` time, their opposition may have a new manager?.one that is very familiar to Blues fans. After the international break Birmingham City face Bolton Wanderers at St. Andrews with the away side`s recent sacking of manager Dougie Freedman ending his two year reign at the club. Bookies favourite at prices of 7/2 is former Blues manager Chris Hughton and if this is true he may be on the touchline a week on Saturday managing his new side.
As Birmingham City fans have seen when Hughton took charge of the club, He is very good at stabilising and giving confidence to his players and with Bolton Wanderers bottom of the league five points adrift of safety Hughton may just be the man to save them. After Blues relegation in 2010/11, the former Newcastle manager came in and led them to the play-off semi-finals eventually losing out to winners Blackpool 3-2 on aggregate.
Hughton is also brilliant at playing with a tight budget. In his one season at St. Andrews he had to deal with backroom uncertainty and financial constraints meaning he had to deal in the loan and free agents market. However he did a great job of this bringing in players such as Marlon King, Andros Townsend and Chris Burke and if he was to do the same at Bolton with their measly budget he would gain instant hero status at the Macron Stadium as he became at St. Andrews.
Ofcourse this is all speculation and Bolton are still without a manager but if Hughton was to take over like bookmakers are suggesting then it would be a sterling appointment. Other managers who have been talked about to manage the Lancashire club are Tony Mowbray, Malky Mackay, and Phil Brown.
Yesterday reports from Bolton claimed that Paolo Di Canio and Neil Lennon have also thrown their name into the hat to get the job at the club. The Trotters next four fixtures are tough after the Birmingham game with games against unbeaten Charlton, Brentford, Norwich and Cardiff and it will take funds in January and good man management from whoever takes the job if the club are to survive relegation this year.
Bolton Wanderers definitely have the players to cause anyone a fright on their day, with striker Jermaine Beckford and Chung-Yong-Lee in the side, they should be able to create chances at will but since their relegation in 2012 Bolton have not set the Championship a light and maybe a new fresh manager such as Hughton will be the spark that Wanderers fans have been crying out for.
It is ironic that Birmingham will still get the chance to face Bolton in a Championship fixture this year after being seconds away from relegation to League One after going into stoppage time 2-1 down at Bolton in May. The last time the Whites visited St. Andrews was in October 2013 where they came away victorious.
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