Wayne Rooney names biggest disappointment with Birmingham City job and targets new role

Former Everton attacker Wayne Rooney has reiterated his desire to get back into management following his nightmare spell in charge of Birmingham City.

Rooney, who has managed Derby County as well as DC United, was dismissed from his role at Birmingham on January 3 after just 15 games in charge. Replacing the popular John Eustace, Rooney failed to inspire as he managed just two wins in those 83 days at the club.

Since then, he's appeared on several programmes, including the Overlap YouTube channel with Gary Neville and co, where he also spoke on his desire to get back into management, as he claimed, "I want to get back into management, that’s my focus. My main focus is getting back into football."

And he was asked about his future again last night on BBC Sport's coverage of the FA Cup as he explained the difficult time he endured at the Midlands club. "I think it was a setback what happened at Birmingham City, but I'm a fighter and I want to get back into it."

Gary Lineker then asked whether it was the wrong job at the wrong time, to which Rooney replied: "No, I wouldn't say that. When you look back and reflect maybe the timing of when I went in John Eustace was doing well. As I've said before I don't think the fans ever accepted me from day one. Just disappointed I didn't get to the transfer window. The owners, everyone at the club knew that we had to bring players in and to not have the opportunity to do that was the biggest disappointment."

Birmingham were sat in fifth place under Eustace before Rooney took charge and when he left, the club were left languishing in 20th. It was a hammer blow to Rooney's reputation as a manager but he is willing to step back into the fire at whatever level he can in the near future.