Wayne Rooney’s work ethic has been questioned by his former boss Tom Brady who also said the Birmingham squad was “lazy and entitled.”
The NFL Hall of Famer co-owns the Blues and his damning assessment has been revealed as part of a new Amazon Prime documentary set to air on Friday.
Brady questioned Rooney’s work ethic before passing judgment on a Birmingham squad that was relegated to League One in 2024.
“I’m a little worried about our head coach’s work ethic,” he said, as per the BBC. “I mean, I don’t know, I don’t have great instincts on that.”
Rooney’s time at Birmingham was difficult from the off having replaced John Eustace who had the Blues sixth in the Championship.
Rooney lost his first game, against former team-mate Michael Carrick, and had to wait until late November for his first win.
The England forward was then given the sack in January having picked up just two wins in 15 games and with the club in 20th.
As for the players, Brady blamed them for Birmingham’s relegation, suggesting they did not put in enough effort to stay up.
“Well we’ve already changed the coach, so it’s really the players because the coach doesn’t go out there and put the ball in the goal,” he said.
“They were lazy, they were entitled and when you’re lazy and entitled, you don’t have much of a chance to succeed.
“We’ve got to change all the people that are associated with losing, so I think this summer there’s going to be a lot of people gone.”
Another scene shows Rooney and Brady discussing the team’s plight with the former Man Utd striker suggesting it was a concentration issue.
“Why they’re playing in the Championship and not the Premier League,” Rooney said, “is because… we’ve all passed a ball, kicked the ball and run, but it’s a focus, concentrated for 90 minutes.”
Brady did at least admit some blame, suggesting the new ownership changed too much, too quickly.
“There was some good advice that I got that was like, ‘listen, don’t go in there and make these big, sweeping changes – you guys have time’,” he said.
“And of course we make sweeping changes.”
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Another scene continues Birmingham’s forced rivalry with Wrexham as co-founder Tom Wagner described them as a “small club.”
“They’ve done a spectacular job at bringing attention to a small club,” he said.
“I think what we have here is a club that’s already a very big club and so, from our perspective, it’s a bit different. The ambitions for us in the context of what we’ll build is bigger than what they’ll do at Wrexham.”
“Our target’s not Wrexham. Our target is to play Premier League football against Villa.”
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