Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer have had their say on Birmingham City's painful relegation to League One following the conclusion of the Championship season on Saturday.
Although Blues beat play-off bound Norwich City 1-0 at St Andrew's, victories for relegation rivals Plymouth, Blackburn and Sheffield Wednesday saw them drop through the third tier trapdoor for the first time in 30 years.
And while expressing sympathy for Blues' plight, Lineker was quick to point to the club's switching between managers through the season - sometimes on purpose, sometimes enforced - for their struggles.
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"Birmingham City relegated from the Championship to League One when they were going really well," Lineker told The Rest is Football podcast. "They sacked [John] Eustace early in the season, Wayne Rooney came in and they sacked him - that didn’t really work either - and now they’re relegated."
Eustace had Blues in the play-off places when he was sacked to make way for Rooney at St Andrew's. Following Rooney's dismissal after a 15-game slump, Tony Mowbray was appointed manager, but a month later he was forced to take a medical leave of absence with his assistant Mark Venus overseeing first-team matters. When that did not work, Gary Rowett was brought in to steer the ship on an interim basis for the final eight fixtures of the campaign.
"What a terrible story that is in terms of how it’s happened," Shearer added. "You thought the investment was coming in, Tom Brady and all of that. What a mess and what a terrible season for them."
