Tom Brady & Birmingham City's owners went for the Hollywood option of hiring Wayne Rooney and ended up burning their Premier League promotion hopes - now they'll be glad to avoid relegation

When Wayne Rooney was parachuted into Birmingham City in October and given the keys to an ascending side that was already in a play-off position, the minimum that could have been expected was a serious bid for promotion to the Premier League.

Instead, less than three months later and after a truly disastrous run of two wins from 15 matches, Rooney has been sacked. Having taken over from John Eustace with Blues sitting sixth in the Championship table, Rooney leaves with the team all the way down in 20th place, just two spots and six points above the relegation zone.

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Instead of pushing for promotion to the big time, Blues now face an almighty fight to avoid the drop to the third tier of English football, which would be an utter disaster for NFL legend Tom Brady, who became a minority owner of the club last August.

While Rooney's limitations as a coach have been laid bare during his dreadful, short-lived time in charge, he can hardly be blamed for wanting to take the job. Instead, the blame should fall on Brady and his fellow Birmingham directors, who are now counting the cost for choosing a big-name hire over a coach who was in the process of building a winning team before his inexperienced superiors got involved.