REACTION: Redknapp departs Blues

It’s happened again. For the third time in under a year, Birmingham City have parted company with a manager.

Gary Rowett’s sacking came as a huge shock, Gianfranco Zola’s obviously not so much, but what about Harry Redknapp?

We’re talking here about six defeats on the spin in all competitions, for any club this isn’t acceptable. You have to pick up results one way or the other.

What makes this situation different, though, is that Redknapp has just been heavily backed in the transfer market and we’re only just over two weeks on from when the window closed.

14 players came through the door over the summer and we’ve had just three games since the close of the window.

It doesn’t take a genius to work out that it was always going to take time for the team to gel.

For some reason, I’m not THAT surprised by the sacking. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen the way modern football’s going or maybe it’s because we’ve already seen the rash decisions made at this club over the last nine months.

And that’s what this is – a rash decision. The panic button has been well and truly pressed.

There were huge signs in the second half at Leeds on Tuesday that we could be heading somewhere with this side.

Ultimately we lost the game, but most fans left that game feeling more positive going forward.

Today we saw a pretty decent first half and a shambles of a second half. We capitulated during an 11 minute period as Preston struck three times to put Blues out of sight.

There was no real togetherness about the way we fell to today’s defeat and it was more about individuals rather than the team – and that’s the point.

Time was needed, but the Blues board have been ruthless.

To get rid of Harry after this short period worries me. The people making these decisions is what is concerning me.

Just 48 hours ago, CEO & Director at Blues Xuandong Ren tweeted: ‘It’s easy to believe in people when they’re succeeding. But that’s not what we’re about. We have to believe in each other when we fail’.

Well, it’s fair to say that he’s not of that opinion today.

Whatever happens now, the next appointment HAS to be the right one. This isn’t what Birmingham City is about, sacking managers for fun.

All I’ll say is thank you to Harry for saving us last season and trying his best to bring us a side that we can be proud of. He knew what Blues were about.

Unfortunately, it hasn’t gone the way we or Harry himself expected. More time was needed, but once again we have to move on.

He saved us from the drop, we’ll now never know if he would’ve taken us to the top.