Jewell Joins Derby, McLeish Matriculates at Birmingham

Well, this news would matter more to me if these teams were any good.

Derby will be going down regardless; they are simply the worst Premiership team I've seen in years and Paul Jewell won't be able to save them this season.

I picked Birmingham to join Derby in the Championship next year as well, and that was with Steve Bruce at the helm, who I believe is a good manager and possibly could've kept the team up. Alex McLeish turned the fortunes of the Scottish national team around and even though they just missed out on qualifying for Euro 2008, whoever is hired as the next manager will inherit a pretty stable, solid situation and team that has a good chance to qualify for World Cup 2010. As far as McLeish goes, however, I don't think Birmingham made the right choice in hiring a guy who hasn't managed in England before, much less the Premiership, in the middle of the season. It's one to manage in Scotland and at Rangers, where success is easier to attain than it is in the Premiership, and it's another to manage a team that doesn't have the same talent level as even other squads in the bottom half of the table. If McLeish keeps Birmingham up, it'll be by the skin of their teeth and nothing more.