, What would Birmingham City’s starting XI look like under Mark Warburton?

What would Birmingham City’s starting XI look like under Mark Warburton?

Departing QPR boss Mark Warburton has been heavily linked with the Birmingham City job.

The 59-year-old is being tipped to replace Lee Bowyer at Birmingham City. He’s leaving QPR this summer, and he’s already commented on the speculation linking him with a move to St Andrew’s.

Warburton is coy on the position whilst Bowyer is still in the job, but he failed to rule out the potential move.

With that in mind, what would Birmingham City’s starting XI look like under Warburton?

Attacking football…

In three years at QPR, Warburton developed a reputation for playing fast and attacking football. He more often than not started with a 4-2-3-1 formation, though he sometimes played with two up front when trailing.

He preferred to play full-backs in that back four rather than the more attacking wing-back players, with that attacking midfield three holding a lot of pace and covering a lot of ground in the opponent’s half.

Warburton also preferred to play with a more target man-like striker, someone with physicality who can bring others into the game, but also stretch the opposition back-line with his pace.

Here’s what Warburton’s Birmingham City XI could look like:

, What would Birmingham City’s starting XI look like under Mark Warburton?

Of course, the first thing to note is that Warburton’s possible Birmingham City XI going into next season won’t be without its new signings.

He has some experienced Championship players to rely on in the likes of Neil Etheridge, Marc Roberts, George Friend, Maxime Colin, Gary Gardner, Ryan Woods, Scott Hogan and Lukas Jutkiewicz.

At QPR, Warburton made a fan favourite out of Lee Wallace at left-back and he could do the same with Friend at left-back, who boasts a lot of the same qualities.

Elsewhere along the back-line, Warburton will need a new centre-back, one that can play the ball out from the back and also travel with it.

Perhaps a big change Warburton could make is to play Scott Hogan as a no.10 behind Jutkiewicz – he’s perhaps one of the only players in this Blues side with an ounce of pace, and he has great technical ability and goal-scoring ability too, so an attacking manager like Warburton could really take his game to the next level.

Jutkiewicz could don that target man role for Warburton, with Jordan Graham one side of him, and perhaps a new signing on the left.

This Blues side definitely needs a lot of work doing to it. But with another turgid season behind them, there’s been a lot of positive headlines coming out of the club, and Warburton looks as though he’d be a really keen appointment for Birmingham City.

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