Chris Holt talks to Sheffield Star's Alex Miller about Xisco's exit from Sheffield Wednesday. Followed by Charlie Haffenden who breaks down John Eustice's time at Birmingham City
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00:00 It's unofficially sacking season in the EFL and there have been a couple of very high
00:10 profile ones in the championship in the past week. One of the bosses could have very little
00:14 to argue about while the other could feel very, very aggrieved. First up in the show
00:18 today we'll be talking to Alex Miller of the Sheffield Star, with Wednesday having
00:22 got rid of Cisco Muñoz last week and looking likely the appointed successor in the coming
00:26 days. And later we'll be joined by Charlie Haffenden from Birmingham World as he gives
00:30 us his take on the surprising news that John Eustace is out at Birmingham, despite the
00:35 Blues very good start to the season. And with the big names seemingly ready to step in,
00:40 welcome to Everything But The Prem. Alex, it's been a busy week for you in Sheffield
00:49 as usual, actually nothing really changes there on the Sheffield front.
00:54 Yeah, there's always a touch of carnage just around the corner. Every now and again they
01:00 settle us into a false sense of security and then bang, something happens. But I must admit
01:05 this one felt like it was coming for quite a few weeks. Wednesday's start to the season
01:12 is sort of well publicised and yeah, it felt pretty likely that there was going to be a
01:18 change at some stage or another. And yeah, busy time. Trying to cobble together information
01:27 on who the new man might be. The new man, well, we'll start with what went
01:34 wrong with Cisco first to give a little bit of background on that. The answer is probably
01:40 everything really. Yeah, I'm wary that we've only got 10 minutes
01:45 or so on this. Essentially what it came down to is they
01:51 didn't pick up a win in 10 games, 11 games, whatever it was. He looked like he didn't
01:59 know what his best team was. There was a whole raft of new recruits in the summer, which
02:08 nobody seemed to know where they fit in. And a couple of high profile players who played
02:17 a very big role in getting the promotion in the first place were left out. That's it in
02:23 a nutshell really, isn't it? Yeah, I mean the phrase that's been used time
02:29 and again is sort of taking a sledgehammer to the team. And the sense of feeling around
02:36 the Wednesday side that won a lot of football games in the last couple of seasons, and obviously
02:42 the way that they were promoted as well, it felt like a real moment to grab and run with
02:49 really. But the scale of the change is obviously Cisco's predecessor Darren Moore left. And
02:59 yeah, he went about it his way. I think there was a big focus on playing a different style
03:05 of football that the Wednesday squad never quite looked comfortable with. And once that
03:13 had been pressed forward for the first few weeks, there was a bit of a scrambling in
03:17 terms of playing style and what would work with that style of players. In Chisker's last
03:22 game they were very, very direct and back to front. I think the stats would suggest
03:28 it's one of the most direct performances that we've seen from any team in the Championship
03:32 this season, which is such an enormous departure from what he'd spoken about coming in. So
03:39 it all ended up a little bit muddled and confused. And like you say, it leaves Sheffie Wentz in
03:44 a bit of a perilous position already, several points shy at the bottom. And yeah, whoever
03:53 comes in, we have our ideas to who that might be, he's got a big job on.
04:01 It seemed like Sisko was on a bit of a hide-in-the-nothing from the very start, given the madness that
04:10 happened in the summer when, you know, just completely out of the blue, Dara Moorer, who
04:14 had obviously won promotion in those traumatic circumstances at the end of last season, when
04:23 he left the club after, let's say, a disagreement on the future of the team with the chairman
04:33 Dirk Pontansiri. Did it feel like Sisko had too much to do, really, given the circumstances
04:45 that he'd come into? Or let's say he was just always on the back foot, shall we say?
04:49 Yeah, I think that's probably closer to it. I've written a couple of pieces in the last
04:54 week or so. I do have sympathy for Sisko in terms of the cacophony of chaos, I think,
05:03 around him with the chairman making statements that Sisko looked increasingly frustrated
05:09 with. It felt like every time there was a rallying cry for unity at the club that maybe
05:17 struck some chords, something else would happen and that would be torn away. But at the same
05:22 time, it's difficult because, from what we can gather, he was appointed very much on
05:29 the basis that we were going to play a certain way. So, it's not like he could have come
05:34 in and looked at the squad and, in the first few weeks, played more direct and played in
05:41 the style that got them to the championship in the first place. But, as I say, it all
05:45 became very confused. There were some bizarre decisions in there, really bizarre decisions
05:49 in terms of selection and personnel. At times, there were moments on the pitch where you
05:55 look out and there's only two members of the promotion-winning team. It's not just a promotion-winning
06:00 team. The season before obviously didn't end the way that Wednesday wanted it to with failure
06:05 in the playoffs. But there was a core of a squad there that had won an awful lot of football
06:10 games and had become very, very close on and off the pitch. And to completely disregard
06:17 that in many ways was a bold decision and one that I think ultimately probably cost
06:23 him his job.
06:24 Moving on then, the process is very much well underway of replacing Sisko. It's looking
06:35 increasingly likely that Danny Rowe – I'm going to work out how to say it. I've been
06:43 told – or sorry, I picked up on Twitter that you pronounce it how somebody from Hull
06:49 would say Rowe. So I think it's Danny Rowe. Danny Rowe has a lot of experience for someone
07:03 at such a young age in terms of the amount of clubs and very big clubs and very big jobs
07:09 that he's had. He has been at RB Leipzig, he's been at Southampton, he's been assistant
07:16 coach with the German national team alongside Hansi Flick. But he hasn't been a manager
07:23 before. Now we spoke last week about the fact that Wendsey perhaps needs a firefighter
07:37 now at this stage and perhaps somebody like Neil Warnock or somebody who has the experience
07:43 of doing that kind of job would be best at this stage and perhaps maybe looking at somebody
07:49 like Danny Rowe in the summer to kind of start a project. Clearly those in power at Sheffie
07:56 Wendsey believe that there is more than enough time for this season to be turned around and
08:00 the project can start immediately if indeed Danny Rowe is the man to take over. Does that
08:07 surprise you a little bit?
08:11 Not really. Look, we gather that Danny Rowe was someone that the club spoke to at length
08:15 in the summer before Chisco was appointed. I think it's... Wendsey have rightly been
08:25 accused in recent years of sort of lurching from one thing to the other and so I think
08:31 following through with a certain profile of manager is something that I think can be commended.
08:38 There are anxieties around where Wendsey are and where the squad is compared to the rest
08:44 of the championship just in terms of the set-up and maybe a perceived lack of dynamism and
08:51 all the rest of it there. Look, if Danny Rowe had been appointed in the summer I think there
08:58 would have been a great deal of excitement and rightfully so. It's an appointment that
09:03 I remain excited about. It's just a very, very difficult place for a 34-year-old first-time
09:09 manager to come in. There's no doubting his coaching CV. The club that you missed off
09:13 there was the Lillymoon. I always find it a bit lazy when you sort of cling to certain
09:25 things and Mikel Arteta and Enzo Maresca and all these managers have followed a very similar
09:33 path in terms of being the background figure behind big, big-name managers of big clubs
09:40 and knowing the pressure that comes with it. Now, it is a different kettle of spuds when
09:45 you're the main man. I've read an awful lot of English language interviews that he's done.
09:54 I think his grasp on the language is pretty good and he speaks very, very well and very,
10:00 very confidently. He's 34. He's younger than Wednesday's number nine which is always a
10:05 little bit of a quirk. There are pitfalls and there are big ticks in the potential appointment
10:19 which we should say with all the caveats is not done yet. The madness of Sheffield Wednesday
10:24 always plants something in the back of your mind that something could change quite late
10:28 on but it's one that I'm cautiously excited about. There are many ways to skin a relegation
10:36 battle. Lurching from being Neil Warnock's biggest cheerleader to Danny Rill might feel
10:44 a bit disingenuous but as I say, there's many ways to go about this and if Wednesday are
10:49 sort of pressing on with a certain profile of manager and where they want to go about
10:53 it then that has to be commended.
10:57 You name those top teams and the big, big name players that he will have worked with,
11:05 sometimes that doesn't always translate to the Championship. However, doing a little
11:12 bit of reading up and having a look on social media around what Southampton fans have said,
11:18 they're very much of the opinion that, I wouldn't go as far to say he was the brains behind
11:24 it but in the Championship and in the Premier League with Hasenhuttl, they felt that things
11:34 started to go wrong in that regime when he left.
11:40 He's clearly very, very highly rated as a coach first and foremost and translating that
11:49 to a different set of players I guess would have its question marks. Reading around him,
12:01 when Hansi Flick left Bayern Munich to having headhunted him from Southampton, Julian Nagelsmann
12:08 wanted to keep him on board at Bayern and now that Nagelsmann has followed Flick into
12:13 the Germany job, he very much fancied him as part of the coaching staff there.
12:18 These are some of the biggest, biggest names in football management the world over that
12:23 don't appear to have anything bad to say about him. It's a step down for him, there is absolutely
12:30 no doubt he has dipped down for Sheffield Wednesday. In my eyes, looking at his profile
12:42 and all the rest of it, you look at the number of young managers that get given a go at Bundesliga
12:47 level or clubs perhaps a little bit more calmly set up in the Championship in recent years
12:55 and I think it's a coup for Wednesday. It certainly, certainly would have been in the
13:00 summer. There is that niggling doubt over the firefighter tag and having to come in
13:06 and hit the ground running immediately. But yeah, like I say, this is Wednesday's win
13:13 rather than Danny Rill sort of fighting his way through his career.
13:20 Just going by what you've said, is there a slight concern that he, well it's probably
13:29 pretty obvious really, will he be feeling that this is probably a stepping stone into
13:34 bigger things, potentially a Premier League job if he does well here?
13:39 Yeah, Danny Rill isn't sat here at 34 working at the clubs that he's been at to think that
13:45 he's going to finish his career as Sheffield Wednesday manager. If he does, Wednesday will
13:50 probably be a Champions League club at the end of it and all the rest of it. So, everyone
13:54 would be a winner. But yeah, let's not worry about the potential stepping stone tag. If
14:00 he does go off and find a bigger and better job, he'll have done a good job at Sheffield
14:06 Wednesday and yeah, everyone walks away happy I think.
14:10 Thanks a lot Alex. We will now move on to the second, I think it's the second, second
14:18 high profile sacking of the past week. In fact, this one just broke a couple of hours
14:23 ago before we began recording. I'm now going to be joined by Charlie Hafennew from Birmingham
14:29 World as we look at the situation in Birmingham. John Eustice has been relieved of his duties
14:39 at St Andrews when, let's be honest, everything had seemed fairly steady given that Birmingham
14:48 City has been everything but steady over the past few years. Charlie, thanks for joining
14:52 us. Just give us a bit of background here over what's happened in the past. This has
14:57 kind of rumbled in the past 24, 48 hours, yeah?
15:01 Yeah, over the weekend it was breaking that Wayne Rooney could potentially be coming in
15:07 at St Andrews to replace John Eustice. Massive backlash just at the rumours from the fans
15:12 because it's more than stable at the moment. They're in sixth place. It's been an amazing
15:16 start to the season. They've just beaten Huddersfield Town 4-1, beaten local rivals West Bromwich
15:21 Albion 3-1 under the lies at St Andrews and there's such a good togetherness which is
15:26 something the club hasn't had in such a long time. Not only this season have they done
15:30 well but last as well. Limited resources, awful owners before new ones came in and he
15:36 did brilliantly to get a best points finish in about six or seven seasons. So, I really
15:41 don't understand it at all. But it appears that the new American owners want a big name
15:48 in charge and John Eustice isn't a big name. He's just a reliable, hard-working, working-class
15:54 manager who the fans loved. I think that's more the identity of Birmingham City. They're
15:59 saying they want someone who brings an identity of winning. Rooney is a player, absolutely,
16:04 one of the greatest of our generation but as a manager he's not got the best record
16:09 behind him. I think it's a ludicrous decision personally.
16:13 It is really odd, isn't it? Initially it kind of felt like the new owners had come in, they'd
16:24 stabilised things, it didn't look like they were meddling too much. The fact that they
16:32 kept John Eustice. It was towards the end of last season, wasn't it, that they came
16:37 in?
16:38 Yes, last season it was announced against Sheffield United and then afterwards a big
16:43 squad overhaul throughout the summer and everything's been positive.
16:47 It looked like John Eustice was going to be a key figure in that because the fact that
16:54 they kept him, I think actually Birmingham City fans were quite happy with because they
16:58 didn't want owners to come in and get rid of John Eustice just for the sake of it because
17:04 they knew he had worked under really difficult circumstances over the past couple of years.
17:11 They kept him in, he kept him in the division, they finished comfortably in the division.
17:19 It felt like Birmingham City fans were really happy with how things were going and the new
17:25 owners gave the impression that they weren't going to involve themselves too much and then
17:30 all of a sudden we're what, 11 games into the season or whatever it is and they've decided
17:37 to make a change in the most incredible of circumstances because even with the stability
17:44 that was coming at St Andrews, I don't think people were really expecting them to be top
17:50 six and looking like a team who could fairly comfortably at this stage, although it will
17:57 be fairly early, be pushing for the playoffs this season.
18:02 Even the club were quite wary to say that next season is the one maybe to push on for
18:06 playoffs, now isn't really the time.
18:08 Some of the players, Jay Stansfield, spoke to me a few weeks ago, he seems to be ambitious,
18:12 he thinks they can get top six and they're in that position after quite a tough run of
18:16 games actually.
18:17 I did a poll from Birmingham World's account on Facebook yesterday on do you want Wayne
18:23 Rooney to come in as the new manager and 88% said no.
18:27 So I think that kind of tells you everything you need to know on that front.
18:30 A lot of the reason was because they love John Eustace, he's finally got that togetherness
18:34 at the club, he just knows what Birmingham City is about, the identity that I mentioned.
18:40 Wayne Rooney side of it, I don't think they're convinced by him at all as a manager.
18:46 I don't think he's going to have much of a connection either to Birmingham.
18:48 For me it's more of a can he do well in the championship and then move on to maybe like
18:54 an Everton or a Man United one day, one of his previous clubs.
18:57 I think that's probably what he'll be eyeing is that stepping stone.
18:59 So I don't understand it at all from any perspective apart from maybe the fact that he's got that
19:05 global fan base.
19:07 He's obviously got the reputation in America from being at DC United, he's one of the greatest
19:12 as I said, the all-time outfield England appearance maker, all-time Man United goal scorer, he's
19:17 got that.
19:18 But as a player again, it bewilders me.
19:23 It does feel like, you know we've seen in the past where new owners come in who aren't,
19:31 you know I don't want to say foreign owners, but who aren't kind of in touch with the fan
19:36 base of the club that they're taking over.
19:39 And you always get the sense that there's got to be some kind of vanity aspect to it
19:43 and celebrity aspect and there are indeed celebrity aspects to the ownership itself.
19:55 What confuses me is how they've actually been pretty, on a good level with the fan base
20:00 since they've come in and I think Birmingham City fans are very happy with them, what they've
20:05 done so far.
20:07 This could be a turning point for the worst, just as they've recovered, just as they're
20:11 building an upward trajectory it seems like it could go downhill.
20:14 It could go well, Wayne Rooney's not even arrived yet, he could do a brilliant job and
20:19 then everything's forgiven, but it's such a massive risk.
20:23 It stinks actually of when Garrett Rowett left and Gianfranco Zola came in.
20:28 They were I think seventh in the championship in December, Zola comes in, has 24 matches
20:34 and only wins two of them and is sacked five months later.
20:37 I mean that could easily happen again here.
20:40 Look at Rooney's record, he's worked under really, really difficult circumstances at
20:47 Derby and did a really good job there it has to be said.
20:53 But there was a little bit of siege mentality and rallying round there in that sense because
21:00 there was so much going on behind the scenes and he probably in his own mind knew that
21:07 he was never going to be properly judged on that because how could you?
21:15 You couldn't judge a manager on what was going on there because it was just absolutely chaos.
21:21 What's happened since, he's not done a great deal and I kind of feel like if you're going
21:31 to bring in a new manager and you really want to bring in a new manager, he could do an
21:35 awful lot better than Wayne Rooney.
21:39 I don't understand if it's a big step up, but it's not.
21:42 It's a step down I think.
21:44 Reputation is a huge step up, but that's not what they should be looking for.
21:50 The Tom Brady thing I thought is just PR, is this just genuinely a good move that he
21:54 wants to get into this?
21:55 I think potentially a little bit of both, but now after this I'm thinking it's probably
22:00 more PR and trying to build that global reputation for the club.
22:05 I think we did speak last season whenever this came through and we spoke about how Tom
22:12 Brady was having pints with the locals and all this kind of stuff.
22:18 They obviously knew at that time that people suspected that it was a whole big PR exercise
22:24 and having him involved and getting him in there and trying to make him look like he
22:29 was part of it, look to be part of the plan, let's kind of dampen this down and show that
22:36 we're not just messing around here.
22:39 As you say, it looks like they are very much messing around with names and status.
22:47 He's not been there since Tom Brady.
22:50 He was there for a game and he got really integrated with the fan base, did loads of
22:55 interviews.
22:56 I met him, he seemed to be quite interested in it all, but then he's fallen off the face
23:00 of the earth, even on social media.
23:01 I've not really seen much of him recently.
23:04 Whether he comes back onto the scene a bit more, if Wayne really comes in, I'm not sure,
23:08 but lots going on up there again.
23:11 Thanks a lot Charlie.
23:12 It's been a busy week in the EFL.
23:15 I'm sure it'll be, well there's no games this weekend, but that doesn't mean there's not
23:18 going to be anything to talk about next week.
23:19 We'll be back again next time to talk over the big talking points in the EFL.
23:25 Thanks to Charlie for joining us, thanks to Alex for joining us earlier on Sheffie Wednesday
23:30 and thanks to you for watching us.
23:31 We'll be back again next week for another edition of Everything But The Prem.
23:35 [Music]
23:49 [Silence]