Tony Mowbray reveals 'sudden' Birmingham City departure

Tony Mowbray has announced that first-team coach John O'Shea has departed Birmingham City with immediate effect, leaving a sudden void in Blues' coaching staff.

Speaking after Birmingham's last-gasp 2-2 draw with Swansea City on Saturday afternoon, Mowbray revealed O'Shea has had a change of heart since initially wanting to stay. Brought in by Mowbray's predecessor Wayne Rooney, many expected O'Shea to leave with his old Manchester United teammate but he remained, alongside Ashley Cole and Pete Shuttleworth. There's been a 180 since, however.

"John's left the football club, I don't know if that's been published out, no? There's an exclusive there," Mowbray joked, announcing the coach's departure. "John came to see me, John wants to be a football manager somewhere along the line. We had a long chat about it, I tried to persuade him to stay.

"I think he enjoyed the first two or three days but he came in yesterday [Friday] to shake everyone's hands and wish us all well. That's fine – the change of the head coach is what it is. He's going to go off, spend some time with his family and look for the next opportunity. I wish John all the very best, he's a good man and good company," Mowbray continued.

Despite there now being one less coach to conduct training sessions at Birmingham City Elite Performance and Innovation Centre, Mowbray will take his time to bring someone else in. The interest is very high, after all, so it will take some time to sift through all the applications soon to come through.

"I haven't gone to bed before midnight every night because I've literally had hundreds and hundreds of texts off football people out of work," Mowbray explained. "They're asking if I need a new coach. Phwoar, I could bring in 50 coaches tomorrow, you know what I mean. Let's wait and see."

Bluenoses may be concerned that former England and Chelsea captain Ashley Cole could follow O'Shea out of the door but it appears he will be sticking around. Right-back Ethan Laird, albeit injured currently, will be particularly happy as he idolises Cole and has already learned a great deal from him.

"I like Ashley [Cole]. I like his voice and his enthusiasm in training," Mowbray said. "He's a good, bright, young football coach. Hopefully he sees the benefit of working with different people and seeing different ways. I've chatted to him - he had Jose Mourinho, Arsene, Wenger, Sven [Goran Eriksson] and probably [Fabio] Capello. I could hopefully take some seeds from him along the way," Mowbray said.