Wayne Rooney loses his voice after finally claiming first win as Birmingham boss

Wayne Rooney lost his voice giving his Birmingham City players the hairdryer treatment at half-time before they turned it round to win against Sheffield Wednesday in the Championship on Saturday.

Rooney has been under increasing pressure at Birmingham since he replaced John Eustace as manager in October after Tom Brady became a minority investor at St Andrew’s in August, failing to win any of his first five games in charge.

But over a month and a half since taking the hot seat and picking up just one point from a possible 15, Rooney finally picked up his first win as Brum boss against the basement side. It was far from plain sailing though as George Byers gave the Owls the lead late in the first half.

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In a near instant response, Juninho Bacuna equalised in first-half added time before Rooney got stuck into his side at the break. And it bared fruit as teenager Jordan James came off the bench to score the winning goal with 10 minutes of normal time to play.

Speaking after Birmingham’s win against Wednesday, Rooney revealed he lost his voice giving the players at a half-time rollicking, he said: “We can’t get caught up with the fans’ reaction – everyone has opinions and we don’t want to go in 1-0 down but when you’re on the pitch you’ve got to keep your focus and concentration.

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“Forget the fans – my reaction at half-time wasn’t good to the players – that’s why my voice has gone! We didn’t play with the energy I wanted us to play with in the first half and I made the players aware of that but in the second half we were a lot better.

“I wasn’t very pleased with the first half. I thought Sheffield Wednesday pressed really well without the ball but we have to show more composure on the ball because we were too happy to go back to John Ruddy and allow him to make decisions.

“I’ve seen an improvement week by week so if that first half was four weeks ago, I could have understood it, but it was unrecognisable to what we’ve been doing during the international break.”

Birmingham’s first win since October, 6, against West Brom stopped the rot and sees Rooney’s side climb to 14th – just six points outside of the play offs and ten points above the relegation zone.

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