Gary Rowett has spoken out on his controversial exit from Derby County in 2018.
Despite guiding Birmingham City from 21st in the Championship to 10th in his first campaign, Gary Rowett was sacked in the following December following a change of ownership.
Three months later, the coach returned to Derby County, where he spent four years as a player.
Rowett’s time at Pride Park was highly success, taking The Rams to second place at the start of 2018, before eventually securing a place in the Championship play-offs.
Derby missed out on the play-off final and it wasn’t long before the 49-year-old manager requested permission to talk to Stoke City about their managerial vacancy, before he was appointed as their new head coach – a week after Derby lost to Fulham in the semi-finals.
Supporters were left frustrated by Rowett’s abrupt departure, while the former defender lasted only eight minutes before he was sacked by Stoke.
Now unemployed since leaving Millwall in October, Rowett has spoken out about his Derby exit and has admitted that he should have stayed at the club.
Speaking on the Second Tier podcast, Rowett said: “It’s easy for me to say now and I probably would have done because it didn’t work out for me at Stoke.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily true, you have to do what you think is right at the time. There’s always an element that I wish we’d had a clearer plan at Derby at the time and I’d had the opportunity to see that through. It was a job I always wanted. When I left Birmingham I felt if I got the Derby job it would be a fantastic opportunity and that I was a good fit.
“Of course you want to build and stay there for a long time and get them in the Premier League but football doesn’t work like that. Sometimes what happens behind the scenes can’t shape everything and at every club you can’t control the narrative when you leave. Every club wants to fit the narrative from them. As a manager you have to take everything that comes on the chin, whether that’s from social media or in the paper or whatever. You have to accept it as a manager and move on. No regrets but I would have stayed at Derby for a longer period and built that. But that’s easy for me to say now.”
Did Gary Rowett’s exit spark the downfall?
Derby County had a very solid Championship team during Gary Rowett’s spell, with the likes of Tum Huddlestone, Tom Lawrence, and Matej Vydra really impressing.
Things rapidly declined after Rowett left, with the Rams managing a mid-table finish the following campaign before ending up in a relegation battle that has left them in League One.
It all could have gone very differently if the former manager stayed at Pride Park and had built something, but the same could be said of Frank Lampard and Wayne Rooney.
Rowett showed his true colours and clearly wasn’t up for sticking around, but now he has realised the grass isn’t always greener.