In Rowett’s Defence

Seven days prior to Gary Rowett taking over the reins at Birmingham City, Blues were beaten 8-0 at the hands of Bournemouth, their highest ever defeat at St. Andrews.

In the immediate aftermath of the drubbing, caretaker manager Malcolm Crosby told BBC WM – ‘I apologise to the supporters. Whoever comes in as manager, I do not think he will have another performance like that.’ And he was spot on.

Just days later, Gary Rowett was appointed and he took on the unruly task of taking his battered troops to Wolves for a local derby. The two teams contested a hard fought goalless draw which was a result more representative of Rowett`s tenure than was realised at the time.

As miraculous as a clean sheet at the Molineux was (eight players involved in the Bournemouth debacle are still at the club) even more of a miracle was the ten clean sheets that followed.

In 14 games last season before Rowett`s appointment, Blues shut out the opposition just once in a 1-0 win over Brighton. In the 32 games managed by Rowett, 11 clean sheets were kept. This season, Blues have kept the ball out of the net on 14 occasions in 34 games.

That gives Rowett a record of 25 clean sheets from 66 league games (one every 2.65 games). Not bad considering he took over unarguably the most disorganised Blues side for generations and one that was drained of confidence.

This term, only three clubs – Hull (18) Middlesbrough (16) and Burnley (15) – have kept more clean sheets than Blues.

Twitter @robwildey123