Birmingham City manager Gary Rowett has now been installed as the favourite for the vacant position at Fulham - and he has also been linked with the unoccupied hot seat at QPR.

Quite understandably that has sent tremors among Blues fans who recognise both how well the club has done under Rowett and how important he is to its future.

They might also look at the relative wealth of the their Championship rivals and fear that the financial constraints at St Andrew’s might tempt him away from the West Midlands and to West London.

However, we have to look at what is on the table here. There might be more money from a personal and professional point of view but that’s not the only factor at play. Every job in the world is about more than salary and budgets.

The vacancies at both Fulham and QPR are for a head coach and not a manager, a position which appears to be being phased out in modern football.

Certainly for their first time in their history the Whites are not looking for a manager, instead they are searching for someone to fit into an existing structure.

In pictures: Fulham's defeat to Birmingham

Les Ferdinand is director of football at QPR, while at Fulham there is a chief football officer called Mike Rigg.

At the moment Rowett enjoys a tremendous amount of autonomy at Blues and he has often praised those who run the club, directors like Panos Pavlakis, for affording him the independence to do his job as he sees fit.

Rowett spoke of that in August when he said: “I suppose most managers would be in the same boat, they just want the autonomy of being able to drive the team how they see and sign players how they see fit as well.

“I think that’s becoming a rarity in football but I am very lucky we have got that here.”

You can’t help but wonder whether that would be the case at either London club.

However, much people in London like to think so, the grass isn’t always greener in the capital than it is in Birmingham and Rowett’s attention at the minute seems to be focussed on bringing in not one but two players before the emergency loan deadline.

However, given all that, never say never in football.