The Bill Howell Column: The hard work is about to start for Wolves and Birmingham City
Will McCarthy and McLeish be given the backing that Brown got to give their clubs a chance of survival?
As Blues chairman David Gold proclaimed yesterday morning after inviting a TV crew into his back garden as his helicopter was about to take off: “There is no magic formula to staying up”.
He was speaking of relegation, not about keeping his copter in mid air.
Well, there is a magic formula. Money and shed loads of it. Stoke have spent it. Sunderland before them.
And once you’ve spent it you have to keep spending it too, just to tread water.
Having a good manager, admittedly, can help enormously.
McCarthy and McLeish certainly fall into that category.
Gold, interestingly, blamed injuries for Blues’ first relegation and then a failed takeover for the second.
Nothing to do with them not winning games. How curious.
It appears Wolves are talking a good game too.
An un-named director took the offer of a lift home from some young fans after the title was clinched at Barnsley.
Talk in the car was of how lavishly McCarthy would be backed, how the loan market would be explored, how paying massive wages was the key because Wolves, so he said, had learned the lessons of neighbours Albion who steadfastly refused to over-spend.
Words in the back of a car, or the front of a helicopter, are easy.
The hard work for both promoted clubs is just about to start.
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