Lee Bowyer has confirmed that he plans to bring in another assistant coach to Birmingham City to work alongside him and Craig Gardner.

Bowyer only arrived at St Andrew's on Tuesday, and he came without his assistant at Charlton Athletic who was Johnnie Jackson - he remained at The Valley and took caretaker charge as the Addicks won 3-2 against Bristol Rovers.

Ex-Blues player Bowyer though has chosen to keep Craig Gardner and in-fact promote him, with the 34-year-old originally in a first-team coach role.

Gardner is in his second stint as a coach at St Andrew's, having departed in November to link up with Tony Pulis at Sheffield Wednesday, but returned a few months ago following Pulis' sacking at the Owls and he will now play a big role in Bowyer's staff.

But with Bowyer announcing that someone else will be coming in soon enough, it could give Jackson the opportunity to also jump ship from Charlton to Birmingham, just like Bowyer did.

"I’ve brought Craig up, he was First Team Coach here, I’ve moved him up to an Assistant role," Bowyer said, per the Blues' Twitter account.

"I will look to bring in another Assistant to work alongside Craig. That’s not something for right now though, I just want to concentrate on the games at present."

The Verdict

The most likely candidate for Bowyer to bring up to the Midlands is indeed Johnnie Jackson, but he has been named as Nigel Adkins’ right-hand man following his appointment at Charlton, so that may make things difficult.

As it turns out, the combination of Bowyer and Gardner did pretty well against Reading in midweek, but it wouldn’t be a shock either to see if Bowyer can find someone with a bit more experience.

But it looks like Bowyer is being backed with his own men and it suggests that he will be around for a while and it is no short-term measure.