There has been all kinds of rumour and insinuation about Gardner on the Blues grapevine since before the end of the 2025/26 season. The last few weeks have seen those rumours solidify into a firmer narrative that Gardner was to step down from the club and in honesty it’s felt like only a matter of time before it was reported as fact.
While I’m now mostly retired from writing about the club I have a feeling this is going to be a big transition for the club to go through and as such it merited me dusting down my keyboard to share my thoughts.
The Blame Game
Before I go any further, I feel it is imperative that I declare my own personal bias in this situation in order to be fair and transparent.
I’ve come to know Craig Gardner on a somewhat personal level over the last few years and I’ve come to like him on that basis. Since my father died in August last year Gardner has been incredibly supportive of not just me but my family and that has been very much appreciated.
The fact I like Gardner makes it hard to write this; especially as I know despite his protestations that he doesn’t read stuff online he will read this and it may hurt him. However, I can say hand on heart that nothing I have written here isn’t an extension of things I’ve already said – and I hope he understands that there is zero malice intended.
Since it became obvious that Blues would not contest the playoffs at the end of last season there has been a rush for Blues fans online to point the finger of blame at someone for this failure.
Some people took their frustrations out on Chris Davies.
There was an obvious frustration over the team’s poor away record while there were others who didn’t like his style of football.
For a while it looked like it might be Davies who would be the one to get the Spanish archer at the end of the season.
There were consistent rumours all the way until the end of the season that Davies would be the one to go – but like the transfer window often does, those rumours made some of us (including me) look a bit stupid as the smoke cleared to reveal not one ounce of flame.
Other fans took their ire out on Gardner.
Fingers were pointed at the business done in the summer 2025 transfer window and the failure to provide Chris Davies with the tools he would need to get Blues into the top six.
The money spent on fees and wages for Kyogo Furuhashi and Kanya Fujimoto in particular looked poor as both Japanese players struggled to get their Blues careers going.
However, I think when people look at Gardner for recruitment they are only seeing a small part of the picture – and sadly, only a small part of what isn’t right at Blues at this moment in time.
For me, the biggest problem facing Blues is the complete disconnect between the Academy and the first team.
Last season Zaid Betteka was the only Academy player to make his debut for the club and he only played six minutes as a sub in the FA Cup win over Lincoln City.
Again, people could point to Chris Davies for being the problem.
Despite his protestations otherwise it’s been clear that Davies did not have enough faith in players from the u21 squad to fill in the gaps in the first team squad caused by injury or suspension; a problem that is all too common for managers under pressure to get results.
However, while I believe that there were missed opportunities to see if any young players could make the step up to the first team, I think the lack of opportunities is a symptom of a much deeper problem.
In May 2024, Blues u18 squad won the Professional Development League National final, bringing home the silverware after beating Charlton Athletic 3-2 after extra time at Birmingham County FA’s HQ.
Every under 18 who played in that final would go on to be offered a new deal with the club. While there wasn’t a generational talent of the ilk of Jude Bellingham within the ranks there was potential; potential which would need nurturing and growth to make the step up to being pros.
Two years later and of those players only Betteka has made his debut.
This season Billy Burrell, Menzi Mazwi, George Wynne and Dan Isichei have all made the bench but not one has been trusted to go any further, following in the footsteps of Byron Pendelton in 2024/25.
Sadly, many are making exits this month.
Of that team Godfred Boakye, George Wynne, Yusuf Ahmed, Frank Tattum, Alvaro Ruiz-Rente and Dan Isichei have all been released.
And while it’s true that most Academy players will not make the step up to being a pro, I think there has been a major misstep by the club in that these players are being released rather than sold.
As much as the lack of the pathway to the first team can be blamed, I think there is also a lack of cohesion in the way we bring our upper Academy through.
I see other clubs build rapport with smaller teams to allow them to loan out promising players so that they can get minutes and learn the men’s game properly.
Blues have been really poor at this, and the result has been some really poor experiences for young players which have stunted their footballing development and destroyed their potential value to the club.
For me, this is a huge failure – and as much as I like him, I can only point to Craig Gardner as being the person who has to carry responsibility for it – and I think it’s this for this reason more than recruitment the pressure has fallen on his shoulders.
When you’ve been in football for multiple decades with barely a break there comes a breaking point and with all this pressure on him I wasn’t that surprised to see confirmation that Gardner is to walk away.
The Future
With all the rumours over the last few months, there has been the attendant rumours as to who would come in to replace Gardner, with names from Dan Ashworth to Kristjaan Speakman touted as potential replacement Directors of Football (DoF).
I’m not going to pretend to know who is going to get the job because the truth of the matter is I have no real idea; other than to think that the appointment of Ashworth would be incredibly unlikely bearing in mind how highly thought of (and well paid) he is at the FA.
However, with those words “World Class” once again the millstone around the club’s neck, I did want to offer my opinion why we need to be patient when it comes to who comes in as Gardner’s successor.
If you listen to some Blues fans on social media or on forums, the simple answer would be to find the “best possible person”, offer them a dump truck of money and let them get on with it – and in a simple world, that might work as an answer.
However, we don’t live in a simple world – and as such there are no simple answers.
The first thing that springs to mind is an adage someone gave me when the words “World Class” first appeared in the Blues consciousness around the time Knighthead came to the club – namely “world class people don’t sit by the phone waiting for you to call them”.
What was meant by this is that the best people for roles are almost always employed for great sums of money at big clubs / institutions and thus are unlikely to abandon them for the project at Birmingham City no matter how glamorous it might appear to us.
Although it does appear to be a summer of upheaval with lots of people in these kinds of DoF roles moving clubs, I think Blues will still need to work hard to get someone in with a genuinely top-quality CV.
Money isn’t the sole motivator for a lot of people and as such Jeremy Dale, Andrew Shannahan (and Tom Wagner, if he’s ready to come back to work) are going to have to work hard to show that Blues is a place where someone could really make their mark and showcase just what they can do.
However, for me there is a much deeper issue than competency that Blues will need to search for when they look for a new DoF.
One of the reasons Gardner stuck so long in the role at Blues was the fact he’s quite a likeable guy.
He managed to get on with the former owners enough to survive former CEO Ren Xuandong’s frequent changes of favoured agent / fixer, and was important enough during the purchase process that he gained the favour of Tom Wagner.
A new DoF is going to have replicate those interpersonal relationships with people like Wagner, Shannahan and Dale – as well as with Davies, Mike Rigg, plus the coaching and academy staff if they are to be successful.
One only has to look at how Dan Ashworth got on at Manchester United to see that even the most competent DoF types can struggle if they can’t make those relationships work.
And as much as Gardner is likeable, I think a new DoF is going to have to better find a balance between being liked by Knighthead and co and being able to disagree with them.
Most importantly, us fans are going to have to be patient with any replacement.
While I know we live in a world of immediacy where a day is a long time in football let alone a week, I think it’s imperative that we understand it will take a long time for a transition of DoF to show effect.
I honestly think we’d be lucky to see much difference to the way the football side of the club is being run within twelve months of a new DoF being appointed – maybe even longer.
For one, it’s going to take time for a new DoF to bring in the people that they want to take on roles at the club – especially if those people are anything approaching “World Class”.
More importantly, processes take time to overhaul.
A competent DoF is going to want to take time to assess every part of his remit, before prioritising what order things get fixed in and how that process is going to work.
This means a new DoF doesn’t necessarily mean a magically great transfer window this summer or January. It also means that it might be some time before enough reform is brought to the upper academy to help it bring through more players to become assets for the club – whether to be played or sold on.
This summer has the potential to be a bumpy one for the club – but this is the nature of forward motion.
The first three years of Knighthead’s ownership have seen us transition from a basket-case in a delipidated stadium to an ambitious team looking forward to moving into the sports quarter.
With Gardner departing we’re saying thank you and goodbye to one of the people who helped lead that transition.
Now is the time for the club to welcome people who will take it to the next level.
We’ve been patient enough to see things through this far – we need to be a little bit more patient to see things down the next step to the end of the road.
One thought on “Changing of the Gard”
Comments are closed.