Birmingham suffer record eight-goal defeat, Leeds sack Milanic
London (AFP) - Birmingham's miserable season hit a new low as the managerless Championship strugglers suffered their worst ever home defeat while Leeds sacked manager Darko Milanic on Saturday.
As Bournemouth meted out an 8-0 thrashing to Birmingham, Milanic was fired after just 32 days in charge following a 2-1 home defeat against Wolves.
Birmingham's board had sacked their team boss Lee Clark on Monday after a woeful run of results left the Blues languishing in the second tier relegation zone.
But caretaker manager Malcolm Crosby was unable to halt the slide on one of the bleakest days in the 139-year history of a club that was playing in the Premier League as recently as 2011.
Birmingham have won only one of their last 25 home games after Bournemouth romped to their largest ever Football League win.
"Bournemouth were bright going forward and at the end it was an embarrassment," Crosby said.
"I have to take the blame because I picked the team. Obviously the players have to take responsibility because they didn't play well.
"Those players have got to go out again next week and they have to get over this setback. It has been terrible day with apologies to the supporters."
The hosts were a goal down in two minutes to Brett Pitman and reduced to 10 men three minutes later when David Edgar was sent off for a professional foul.
Bournemouth capitalised on their numerical advantage to add two further first half goals through Callum Wilson and Matt Ritchie.
Marc Pugh added the fourth, fifth and seventh goals after the break with substitute Tokelo Rantie converting an 80th minute penalty.
Rantie completed Birmingham's humiliation with the eighth goal four minutes from time.
At Leeds, Milanic was only hired by owner Massimo Cellino in September, but the controversial Italian has already decided to move onto his third manager of an increasingly chaotic campaign after the Slovenian failed to win any of his six matches.
Leon Clarke capped a fine Wolves comeback with a tap in after a flowing move, completing the turnaround after James Henry had cancelled out Mirco Antenucci's opener.
Neil Redfearn will take control of the first team for the second time this season on Monday after an earlier successful caretaker spell.
"I made a mistake with this guy. He is negative, he has a losing mentality. He has three points from six games, that is relegation (form)," Cellino told the Yorkshire Evening Post.
"Neil Redfearn will take training on Monday. He is the new head coach, 100 per cent."
- Leaders stumble -
Derby's 12-game unbeaten run was brought to an end as they lost 2-1 at home to Wigan, who came from behind to win for the first time since late August thanks to a James McClean brace.
Watford substitute Troy Deeney denied promotion rivals Middlesbrough in a 1-1 draw at the Riverside Stadium.
Deeney scored his fourth goal of the season less than 10 minutes after coming off the bench to cancel out Kike's 49th-minute strike.
Neil Lennon guided struggling Bolton to victory in his first home game in charge as a trio of second-half goals secured a 3-1 success against Brentford.
Nottingham Forest suffered their first defeat at the City Ground this season as three goals in 11 second-half minutes helped Blackburn to a 3-1 victory.
Nigerian defender Danny Shittu marked his first league start in more than seven months with the winning goal as Millwall beat Cardiff 1-0 at The Den.
Elsewhere, Reading beat Blackpool 3-0 and Ipswich drew 2-2 with Huddersfield.
Sheffield Wednesday and Norwich shared a goalless draw and Brighton drew 1-1 with Rotherham.
