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

Brady became a minority owner at Birmingham one month after the club's takeover by US-based Shelby Holding Companies, which was spearheaded by American financier Tom Wagner and is a nod to the global television hit 'Peaky Blinders', set in the Small Heath neighbourhood of Birmingham where the club's St Andrew's Stadium resides.

The takeover was initially greeted with enthusiasm by long-suffering supporters, who were last in the Premier League in 2011, and Brady ingratiated himself to fans by buying drinks at a pub before a victory against Leeds back in August.

But the early goodwill towards Brady and the new owners soon dissipated when the club took the surprising decision to sack Eustace in October and hire Rooney. The timing was particularly baffling, as Eustace had just overseen convincing wins over Huddersfield Town and local rivals West Brom, while Rooney had just departed D.C. United after failing to steer them into the MLS play-offs.

Eustace had guided Birmingham to their highest points total in seven years in his first year in charge despite a background of turmoil off the pitch as the club was going through the takeover process. They finished nine points clear of the relegation zone and won three of their opening four games the following season, before a wobble in form which ultimately led the owners to turn to Rooney.

The long statement Birmingham released at the time they sacked Eustace must make for excruciating reading for Blues fans now. The 789-word letter from CEO Garry Cook to supporters mentioned the word 'ambition' seven times and talked about "creating a winning culture" and "aspiring to be world-class".

Although it contained platitudes to Eustace for avoiding relegation, the clear message was that the unglamorous coach, who made fewer than 50 Premier League appearances as a player and whose only previous managerial job was with non-league Kidderminster Harriers, did not fit their plans for the club.

But their big mistake was to assume that Rooney did, almost exclusively based on his achievements as a player. Rooney was England's all-time top scorer when he retired and remains Manchester United's leading marksman with 253 goals, winning the Champions League and five Premier League crowns among a host of other trophies.

Birmingham chairman Wagner described Rooney as "a born winner" upon appointing the legendary striker as coach, but he had conveniently ignored the fact that Rooney's managerial CV was far less impressive than his silverware-laden playing career.

Even before his miserable reign with Birmingham, Rooney had won just 38 of his 139 matches as coach of Derby County and D.C. United, a win rate of just 27 percent. His two teams had scored 138 goals, fewer than one per game, while letting in 186.

Derby avoided the drop in his first campaign by the skin of their teeth, and although they put up a brave fight in his second season after being deducted 21 points, they ultimately succumbed to relegation to League One, with Rooney quitting a few days later.

Although he oversaw a slight improvement in results with D.C. compared to predecessor Hernan Losada, his first and only full season in charge ultimately ended in failure, as his side failed to make the play-offs. They finished ninth in the 15-team Eastern Conference, losing 14 of their 34 matches while winning just 10.

There was little reason to expect Rooney would fare any better in the Championship, especially as he had not managed in the division for more than two years and, unlike Eustace, had no bond with the players.

But even considering his previous record, Rooney's results with Birmingham are astoundingly bad. Under his watch, the Blues won just two out of their 15 matches, losing nine times. They picked up just 10 points, an average of average of 0.6 per game, compared to 1.6 per game under Eustace.

Rooney's side conceded 30 goals in 15 games while scoring just 15. They drew a blank in six matches. His dismal record makes a mockery of Wagner's ringing endorsement in October, when the chairman claimed: "Wayne's playing philosophy will help to realise the ambitions we have set for Birmingham City. We believe, with the support of his coaching staff, the club, and our supporters, he will take Blues forward on the next stage of our journey."

Far from taking Birmingham to a new level, Rooney has sent them tumbling back down to a worse state than they were 18 months ago, when Eustace was brought in to clear up the mess left by Lee Bowyer. Rooney's terrible tenure makes the letter sent to the fans by Cook, who repeatedly embarrassed himself while he was CEO of Manchester City, look all the more ridiculous.

"We are well aware of what has happened at Blues over the past decade. We believe we have moved on from those dark days, giving hope and aspiration to existing and new fans," Cook wrote in October. "We cannot keep looking back and referring to what happened in the recent past, we must look forward – the future is bright and we are on the rise again."

Birmingham were indeed on the rise again and it was down to Eustace. But the owners' failure to value the coach's work has led them to burn their path to progress and take them back to the dark ages.

The irony is that while Wagner, Cook and Brady had no idea their plan could backfire so badly, many fans could easily have envisaged what would happen. After all, they have seen this movie before.

Back in the 2016-17 season, Birmingham were on the rise under Gary Rowett and were in contention for the play-offs. In December, they had beaten Ipswich Town to move up to seventh in the Championship table, level on points with sixth place and only three from climbing into third.

However, just one day later, then-chief executive Panos Pavlakis took the baffling decision to sack Rowett, perhaps motivated by the club's Chinese owners appointing three new directors to the board a few days earlier. Pavlakis hired former Chelsea and Italy star Gianfranco Zola, and the parallels with Rooney are striking. Zola, who played alongside Diego Maradona, was an outstanding footballer in his day, but had a mediocre coaching record, with poor stints at West Ham and Watford.

Zola won just two of 24 matches and was sacked five months after his controversial appointment, with Birmingham three points away from the relegation zone. Harry Redknapp was called upon and Blues managed to clinch survival on the final day of the season.

Brady and Co. failed to learn the lessons of their predecessors, however, and whichever coach comes in to replace Rooney will have avoiding relegation as their primary objective. The owners' vision for Birmingham to be a "football powerhouse" and return to the Premier League will have to wait. It is their own fault for making the elementary mistake of assuming that great footballers make great managers.