EXCLUSIVE: Gary Rowett responds to ‘you’re not fit to wear the shirt’ chants at Birmingham City players

Gary Rowett empathizes with the frustration of Birmingham City’s fans, who expressed their dissatisfaction towards the players following a 1-1 draw with Huddersfield Town.

This marks the second consecutive week where Birmingham failed to secure a win against teams positioned below them in the Championship table, putting them at risk of relegation to League One.

To avoid this fate, Birmingham must secure a win against Norwich City in their upcoming match and hope for favorable results from other matches.

The fans, in the away section at the John Smith’s Stadium, openly voiced their disappointment towards the players, with chants of ‘you’re not fit to wear the shirt’ resonating loudly.

“I understand it,” said interim boss Rowett, who has taken eight points from his seven games in charge. “I see the fans follow us in great numbers, in great voice, for great expense.

“At this stage of the season, they see other teams winning games of football and there’s an expectation when you’re playing the two teams around us that you go and win one of the games.

“We deserve to be where we are and that’s really simple at this stage of the season. Our away form has been incredibly poor all season. You have to show a much better mentality away from home.”

Blues took the lead against Huddersfield in the closing stages of the first half through Koji Miyoshi but they were pegged back inside two minutes of the second period. Jack Rudoni found space down Huddersfield’s right and pulled the ball back for Rhys Healey to score.

Rowett added: “We are down the bottom like Rotherham and Huddersfield so we have no right to win any of these games but I thought we got ourselves into a great position, when you put yourself 1-0 up going into half-time and we were pretty solid. Huddersfield are quite a direct team, they play into (Danny) Ward and play off him and they are strong on set pieces.

“To go 1-0 up, I thought we were pretty strong. We spoke at half-time about the way we press and the way we want to get that defensive structure and after two minutes we make a mistake and let people run off us. It’s a good run and cut-back from Rudoni and a good finish but we can’t allow people to get into those positions so easily.

“That was the disappointment, you haven’t even got 15 or 20 minutes in to make Huddersfield feel on edge and make them feel like they have to start to push forward. We handed over the lead in my opinion.”