Birmingham City made Surprise move for West Brom man

Birmingham City are preparing for life in League One after their relegation from the Championship.

The Blues sat sixth in the table when they controversially replaced John Eustace with Wayne Rooney in October, but after a dramatic decline in form, the Blues were relegated on the final day of the campaign, and they will play in the third tier for the first time in 30 years next season.

Birmingham are on the hunt for a new manager after Tony Mowbray stepped down due to health reasons, and a host of names have been linked with the vacancy at St Andrew’s in recent weeks, including Liam Rosenior, Alex Neil and Paul Heckingbottom.

West Bromwich Albion head coach Carlos Corberan is the latest name on the Blues’ radar, and according to Football Insider, the Spaniard’s reprasentatives have been in contact with the Midlands outfit.

Corberan led the Baggies to a fifth-placed finish in the Championship this season, and while they were beaten by Southampton in the play-off semi-finals, the 41-year-old is attracting plenty of interest this summer.

 

Burnley are said to be interested in Corberan as they search for a replacement for Vincent Kompany after his move to Bayern Munich, while he is also believed to be under consideration by Leicester City, who are expected to lose Enzo Maresca to Chelsea.

Corberan is reportedly “keen to leave West Brom this summer after facing numerous challenges during his time at The Hawthorns”, and it seems as though he has no shortage of suitors.

Birmingham City move for Carlos Corberan seems unrealistic
Carlos Corberan of West Brom
We asked some of our FLW writers for their thoughts on Corberan potentially swapping The Hawthorns for St Andrew’s, and whether he is a realistic target for Birmingham.

Corberan is one of the most highly-rated managers in the Championship, and it would be an incredibly strange move for him to drop down to League One.

Newly-promoted Premier League side Leicester are said to be keen on Corberan, and he has also been linked with Burnley, who will be among the promotion favourites in the Championship next season, so both of those clubs are surely more attractive propositions for Corberan than Birmingham.

Corberan has built up a strong relationship with the West Brom fan base, so it seems unlikely he would leave the Baggies for one of their local rivals, and if he is unhappy with the off-field issues he has experienced at The Hawthorns, the turbulent first year of Tom Wagner’s ownership at St Andrew’s must give him serious reservations about taking the Blues job.

Birmingham should be commended for setting their sights high in their managerial search, but targeting a move for Corberan is way too ambitious.

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Anyone thinking that Corberan would swap a team that finished in the Championship’s play-off spots last season for a club quite simply is living in the clouds.

Corberan’s representatives may have been in contact with Birmingham, but to even put his name in with the vacancy at St. Andrew’s – given he is also being linked with Burnley and Leicester City – is completely and utterly baffling.

From his time at Huddersfield and now West Brom, Corberan is proving to be one of the top head coaches in the Championship, and there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that he wouldn’t take a step down into the third tier of English football.

If it is Birmingham that have made the approach, then it’s commendable and very ambitious of them, but perhaps they need to be a little more realistic on who they are interested in, given that they are now in League One and not the Championship.