Garry cooks up big mess...

GARRY Cook says he will “do what is necessary” to bring success to Birmingham City. Does that include resigning as CEO? After all, Wayne Rooney didn’t get a second chance. Why should the man who lobbied for his appointment?

- Chris Dunlavy

It’s easy to point and laugh at Rooney, who led Blues from sixth place to 20th in the Championship, failed to impose any kind of identity and spent his 83 days in charge mumbling glumly about buying players in January.

But everybody in football could see that the former Manchester United and England captain was a disaster waiting to happen.

If you want ‘No Fear’ football, go and get Ian Evatt from Bolton. Don’t hire a famous name whose managerial CV features a relegation with Derby, a dismal 26 per cent win rate at DC United and teams that play without any semblance of a tactical structure.

Appointing Rooney to implement ‘No Fear’ football was like asking Barratt Homes to build the Burj Khalifa.

Yet Cook did it anyway Whether or not this was due to a close personal relationship with Rooney and his agent Paul Stretford is largely irrelevant.

The broader point is that the 66-year-old was hired by American owner Tom Wagner and his Knighthead consortium to prevent exactly this sort of debacle.