It feels as though we are entering a crucial four days in Wayne Rooney’s time as Birmingham City manager.

Anger amongst supporters has peaked following the 3-1 defeat to Stoke City on Boxing Day. Blues were hapless against the Potters and need to spring a surprise against either in-form Bristol City or promotion-chasing Leeds United to ease concerns.

Bristol City are up first at St Andrew’s on Friday night. A repeat prformance of Tuesday and Rooney risks the wrath of fans who have afforded him plenty of goodwill to date.

The patience of Blues fans during Rooney’s tenure – which has seen the team accumulate nine points from a possible 39 – has been remarkable. Rooney is only too aware that that won’t last forever if results don’t improve.

The game against Leeds, who are unbeaten at Elland Road this season, on New Year’s Day will be Rooney’s 15th in charge since replacing John Eustace. Blues have lost eight of the first 13, 10 defeats from 15 would be disastrous for a club with aspirations of reaching the Premier League in the not-too-distant future.

The one crumb of comfort from Boxing Day was the performance of substitute Romelle Donovan. The 17-year-old was electric off the bench and created Blues’ consolation goal for Jay Stansfield with a mazy run which saw him bamboozle two Stoke defenders.

Rooney was very close to starting Donovan against Cardiff City before changing his mind. With injuries mounting and Blues’ forwards failing to perform, Donovan could make his first senior start before 2023 is out.

“He is (close to starting),” Rooney said. “You make decisions based on the opposition and what you want to do yourself. Through his own performances when he’s been coming onto the pitch, but also through other players’ performances, it’s a real decision I need to make for the next game.”

Anderson can’t be rushed

Blues’ midfield has been crying out for Keshi Anderson for three months and he finally made his return to the pitch as a substitute against Stoke. Anderson’s intelligence, creativity and link play has been missed due to a hamstring injury sustained against QPR on September 22.

We would all like to see him in the starting line-up sooner rather than later, but Rooney will have to be careful with a player who has endured his fair share of injuries in recent years. It was a run of three starts in six days which caused Anderson’s hamstring to give way against QPR in the first place.

The 28-year-old is targeting a return to Blues’ XI by mid-January. He said: “Luckily the games come quite fast over the Christmas period so getting match minutes hopefully isn’t an issue. We have the FA Cup game where maybe we can rotate a few players.

“Hopefully over the next few games I can get some minutes and by the middle of January I should be back up to a position where I can be in contention to start. Hopefully the gaffer sees it that way.”

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