Neil Warnock agrees with Simon Jordan as he makes Birmingham City relegation prediction
Birmingham City only have a two-point cushion to the bottom three and they still have six league matches left to play this season
Neil Warnock expects Gary Rowett to steer Birmingham City to Championship safety after returning to St Andrew's and inspiring the club to a crucial 1-0 victory over Preston North End on Easter Monday. Blues responded to their dramatic Good Friday defeat at Queens Park Rangers with their first win since Tony Mowbray took ill in February.
Blues are still very much in danger of being sucked into the bottom three in their remaining six matches, as they sit just two points above the relegation zone currently occupied by Yorkshire trio Huddersfield Town, Sheffield Wednesday and Rotherham United. Warnock, famously a Yorkshireman, predicts Rowett will be able to ensure that Blues maintain their Championship status.
“It is a dogfight," Warnock told talkSPORT. "It seems to be like that everywhere at the minute, even the promotion side as well. Down at the bottom, there’s some big clubs. Now that Gary Rowett’s gone into Birmingham I think they’ll be okay now, because he’s a good manager, Gary.
"The other lads are just fighting between themselves really. It’s going to go down to the wire. I wouldn’t even write Sheffield Wednesday off, they have a disaster game and then they’ll win two games, so I wouldn’t write them off.”
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Warnock's fellow pundit and former Crystal Palace owner Simon Jordan previously reasoned that he too expects Rowett to prompt enough points from the Blues squad at his disposal in the remaining matches. Blues head to Leicester City on Saturday and then welcome Cardiff City and Coventry City to St Andrew's in a crucial home double header.
"He has gone through the cycle, he's now a more balanced, mature, experienced manager," Jordan said of Rowett. "He did a brilliant job at Millwall and I would expect him to have enough about him to galvanise them. Gary Rowett was the architect of his own downfall [before], but the point is that he is coming into a football club that he knows."