Wayne Rooney admitted he lost his voice ranting at his Birmingham players at half-time – but it seemed to work as they beat Sheffield Wednesday 2-1 at St Andrew’s for his first win since taking charge.
Rooney collected his first win as Birmingham manager at the sixth time of asking against the Sky Bet Championship’s bottom club.
Substitute Jordan James’s grabbed the 82nd-minute winner after Juninho Bacuna’s equaliser cancelled out George Byers’s opener.
Victory was Rooney’s first win in English football since April last year when his Derby side won 2-0 at Blackpool, while new Wednesday boss Danny Rohl has now lost five of his first six games.
Byers tapped home on 44 minutes after Josh Windass’s superb curling free-kick hit the post, but Bacuna equalised within four minutes with a half-volley from 22 yards after Wednesday failed to clear Koji Miyoshi’s corner.
James was Blues’ matchwinner just four minutes after replacing Bacuna, rounding goalkeeper Cameron Dawson to tap home after his first shot had been blocked from Jay Stansfield’s cross.
City risked a fans backlash if they had gone in trailing after a lacklustre first-half performance before Bacuna’ equaliser, but Rooney says he was equally frustrated.
“We can’t get caught up with the fans’ reaction – everyone has opinions and we don’t want to go in 1-0 down but when you’re on the pitch you’ve got to keep your focus and concentration,” said Rooney.
“Forget the fans – my reaction at half-time wasn’t good to the players – that’s why my voice has gone!
“We didn’t play with the energy I wanted us to play with in the first half and I made the players aware of that but in the second half we were a lot better.
“I wasn’t very pleased with the first half. I thought Sheffield Wednesday pressed really well without the ball but we have to show more composure on the ball because we were too happy to go back to John Ruddy and allow him to make decisions.
“I’ve seen an improvement week by week so if that first half was four weeks ago, I could have understood it, but it was unrecognisable to what we’ve been doing during the international break.”
Defeat left Wednesday 10 points from the safety line and former Germany assistant coach Rohl insisted his side deserved more.
“There are reasons why we’re at the bottom of the table, but when I see the improvement of my team and how hard they’re working, they deserved to go in at half-time with a lead of maybe two or three nil,” said Rohl.
“I could push the (rewind) button from five of the last six games. We deserved more. There has just been the one game against Rotherham where we took the points but today we showed nearly what we can do in this league.
“I don’t think we played like a team at the bottom, but we played like a team in the middle of the table.
“It’s hard, but I have a clear idea of what I want to do. It wasn’t enough to take something and it was disappointing when you get this team playing at such a high level and don’t get something.”
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