TOM BRADY has slammed Wayne Rooney’s work ethic during his time as Birmingham boss.
The England and Manchester United legend is also branded “lackadaisical” in a hard-hitting fly-on-the-wall documentary about the club being released on Friday.
Play Dream Team now!
Play The Sun Dream Team ahead of the 2025/26 season
Built in Birmingham: Brady & the Blues is a five-part series being dropped on Amazon Prime that charts the NFL legend’s part-ownership of the club during the last two seasons.
Brady — who won a record seven Super Bowls — visited their training ground in the first episode to observe Rooney’s team meeting and training session.
And while being driven away, he tells his business manager Ben Rawitz: “I’m a little worried about our head coach’s work ethic.”
Rawitz replies: “Comes across as lackadaisical.”
Rooney proved a disaster in his time at Birmingham between October 2023 and January 2024.
He was sacked after winning just two of his 15 Championship games in charge which saw the club plummet from sixth to 20th and they never recovered, crashing into League One.
And the 120-cap England hero appears awkward during his exchanges with Brady.
Rooney, at one point, offers to school the NFL powerhouse in the small details of football.
He explains that the reason Birmingham’s players are at Championship level rather than Premier League is not their skill level but lack of focus for 90 minutes.
Brady tells Rooney: “What’s the difference between football (American) and soccer? Nothing. I treated practice like it was the Super Bowl. Put pressure on them, make them run for everything.”
The series goes on to chart their incredible season last time around which saw them win League One with an EFL-record 111 points under new boss Chris Davies.
But Brady conceded it was a mistake to replace previous boss John Eustace with Rooney within weeks of taking over in August 2023.
The NFL star, who had a 22-year career with New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, said: “I had good advice, ‘Don’t go in there and make sweeping changes. You guys have time.’
“But we made sweeping changes that put us in decline. That was our doing.”
Brady also blasted the players — laying the blame at their feet.
He rapped: “We were trying to make Birmingham a world-class team – but it’s been a s**t year. They were lazy and entitled, which doesn’t give you much chance to succeed.”
Rooney went on to manage Plymouth after his Brum axe but lasted just seven months.
He is now set to focus on his punditry work, including a lucrative gig on Match of the Day.
Wayne Rooney’s record-breaking career
WAYNE Rooney took the football world by storm when he made his debut for 2002 with Everton.
He quickly became the club’s youngest-ever goalscorer aged 16 years and 342 days and was named the BBC’s Young Sports Personality of the Year.
The striker joined Manchester United in 2004 and spent 13 years at Old Trafford. He went on to make 559 appearances for the Red Devils and scored 253 goals. To this day he is still the club’s all-time leading goalscorer.
Following his spell with United, Rooney returned to Everton for a season. He also spent one-season stints with D.C. United and Derby County at the end of his career.
As well as his impressive club career, Rooney is also England’s second-highest goalscorer with 53 goals in 120 appearances, behind only Harry Kane.
After hanging up his boots, the England icon turned to a career in management.
He took charge of Derby County in 2020 and managed to just about save the club from relegation from the Championship at the end of his first season.
However, with Derby handed a 21-point deduction the following campaign, he was unable to keep them up again and subsequently left.
Then came a 15-month spell in charge of MLS side D.C. United. He failed to impress during his time in Washington and parted ways with the club at the end of the 2023 regular season.
Rooney was controversially handed the Birmingham job in October 2023, replacing John Eustace with the club doing well and sixth in the Championship table.
However, in 15 games he suffered nine defeats and managed just two wins. He was sacked in January 2024 with Birmingham down in 20th. The club were relegated to League One at the end of the campaign.
He returned to management in May with Plymouth Argyle but managed just five wins in 25 games. The United legend now finds himself out of work once again.
Read the full article here
