Birmingham City chief Tom Wagner admits the club sacked John Eustace too early last autumn, which paved the way for Wayne Rooney’s dire 15-game spell as manager.

When Eustace was shown the door and Rooney hired, Blues were sixth in the Championship. But after his 83 days in charge, they were 20th after losing nine league games during his tenure

The future looks bright for Birmingham after Wagner, speaking at the Sport Accord Conference, announced plans for ‘a multi-billion-pound’ development featuring a new stadium and which he hopes will be similar to Manchester City’s Etihad Campus.

Wagner mentioned neither Eustace nor Rooney by name but Mail Sport understands the club now accept they acted too quickly in removing Eustace, who is now in charge of Blackburn. Birmingham are in the bottom three and fighting desperately to avoid relegation ahead of Wednesday’s home clash with Cardiff.

‘We made one decision that if we were to go back in time we wouldn’t have made,’ said Wagner. ‘I don’t think we can ever ensure every decision we make will be a perfect one.

‘There were some good lessons learned with some of the decisions we’ve made this year and there have been substantial learnings about how we think about making important decisions on the sporting side.

‘In the context of having made thousands of decisions foe the club this season, we made one that wasn’t perfect.’

More to follow.