![\"Derby](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/0_JS399093878.jpg\")
<\/p>\nJohn Eustace will lead Derby County in a crucial Championship match against his former employers Birmingham City on Saturday<\/p>\n
Derby County manager John Eustace<\/p>\n
John Eustace holds no resentment towards Birmingham City<\/a> two-and-a-half years on from his ruthless sacking and believes their future is bright under Knighthead.<\/a><\/p>\n Blues\u2019 American owners dumped Eustace<\/a> in order to appoint Wayne Rooney<\/a> a few months after they took control at St Andrew\u2019s in 2023. The team were sixth in the Championship at the time of Eustace\u2019s departure and ended up suffering relegation.<\/p>\n Eustace bounced back with Blackburn Rovers before jumping ship to Derby County last year and the Rams are right in the thick of the shake-up for the play-offs.<\/p>\n Eighth-placed Derby, who are currently three points outside the top-six, host 10th-placed Blues at Pride Park on Saturday in what is a big game for both teams.<\/p>\n Eustace said: “Birmingham<\/a> are one of the top teams in the league, they’re coached very well and have a fantastic squad of players.<\/p>\n \u201cThey’ve invested very heavily over the last couple of seasons. We know it’s going to be a really difficult game\u201d<\/p>\n READ MORE: Birmingham City have chaos creator \u2013 Chris Davies has promised not to \u2018over-coach\u2019 him<\/a>READ MORE: First meeting with Chris Davies pointed towards ‘fundamental’ – and the data doesn’t lie<\/a><\/p>\n Eustace has managed against Blues twice since his departure and he is yet to record a victory.<\/p>\n Blues defeated his Blackburn side 1-0 in February 2024 and Derby held Blues to a 1-1 draw at St Andrew\u2019s on Boxing Day.<\/p>\n The 46-year-old was asked whether there is any animosity between himself and his former club at his pre-match press conference on Thursday.<\/p>\n \u201cAbsolutely not,\u201d he said. \u201cI loved my time at the football club. It’s a brilliant football club to work for and I’m sure they’ll have huge success in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n Get the latest Blues headlines sent straight to your phone<\/p>\n BirminghamLive has its very own Birmingham City<\/a> WhatsApp community to deliver the latest headlines straight to your phone. Just click this link<\/a> to receive daily Blues content and breaking news. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don\u2019t like our community, you can check out any time you like. Click on the name at the top of your screen while in WhatsApp and click ‘Exit Group’. Read our Privacy Notice.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Eustace will lead Derby County in a crucial Championship match against his former employers Birmingham City on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":838496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,1205,748,50902,393,4884,50904,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-838495","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-birmingham-city-fc","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-derby-county-fc","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-john-eustace","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116261754386464720","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=838495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/838496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=838495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=838495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=838495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}