For a portion of Birmingham City's first season back in the Championship, Chris Davies faced criticism for being too stubborn to adapt. The Blues manager, alongside the club's recruitment staff, initially assembled a squad lacking physicality but rich in technical ability. Davies now acknowledges that physicality is more critical for Championship success than technical prowess.
This deficiency in size contributed to several matches where Blues were outmuscled by opponents during the first half of the season. Notable defeats included 3-0 losses away to Coventry City and Sheffield United, followed by another 3-0 defeat at Watford on New Year's Day, which proved a turning point.
Frustrated by another passive road performance, capped by a hat-trick from 34-year-old Tom Ince, chants of 'sideways and backwards, everywhere we go' echoed from the away end. Davies appeared hurt by this criticism when questioned in his post-match press conference.
A line was drawn at Vicarage Road, prompting Davies to make wholesale changes mid-season. Six players were signed for an initial outlay of £15 million, while seven were sold or loaned out. The objective was to inject speed and physicality into the squad to compete effectively in the Championship.
Norwich away in mid-February exemplified Davies' vision. A clinical counter-attacking display featured target man August Priske, supported by Carlos Vicente's penetrating runs off the striker's right shoulder. However, Priske later struggled against Jake Cooper and Lloyd Jones in defeats to Millwall and Charlton, effectively ending Blues' play-off hopes.
A month after his challenging afternoon at Charlton, Priske started again at Ipswich. This time, he performed more effectively, sparking a run of six consecutive 90-minute appearances to conclude the campaign. Blues secured 11 points from those six matches, and Priske ended his goal drought with a powerful header at Portsmouth on the final day.
Davies on the Need for a Physical Striker
Asked whether Blues must now play with a striker of Priske's profile, Davies told BirminghamLive: 'I don't think we would have been able to play like we have done without August. If you look across the league, it's commonplace now. There's been a rebirth of the classic number nine, not just in this league, it seems to be all around. After those years of false nines and little strikers, it seems like we're back in that territory again. Maybe it's because of rule changes, more build-up, more pressing, more long balls, emphasis on set pieces – it's all coming back round again. I think you need a physical reference point, and I don't see how we could be as effective without that.'
In five of those matches, Blues had 50 percent possession or lower. Their average of 54 percent possession across the entire Championship season indicates a significant stylistic shift. Blues averaged 70 long balls per game across those six games, well above their season average of 60.
The selections of Priske and Vicente, who confined Patrick Roberts to zero minutes in the final five games, have also allowed Blues to rediscover the 'press to score' mantra that was lost when Marvin Ducksch led the line.
Pre-Season Planning
There is no turning back for Davies. When Blues' players return for pre-season training towards the end of June, the coaching will differ from previous summer sessions. 'It's given me food for thought around what I want pre-season to look like in terms of the practices that we do,' he said. 'The emphasis of training, transitions, first pass forward, that type of work to make sure we're utilising counter-attacks even better than we do and just being a bit more direct with our play.'
Davies added: 'I've always been of the opinion that it's easier to move into a more simplistic, pragmatic version of football if you've got a comfortable understanding of a more complex version. For example, if a team is just very pragmatic by nature and then the opposition gets a man sent off and they've got an extra player, some teams struggle with that because they don't know how to have the ball, they don't know how to move, they've got no patterns, they've got no concept of what having the ball feels or looks like. Whereas I feel like we've had success because what I've asked them to do in recent weeks is probably play a more simple version of the game, knowing that we are capable of playing a more expansive, possession-based game. I don't want to lose sight of that, absolutely, and I think some of those principles need to be in place but I want us to be an effective team. I've got no interest whatsoever in an affiliation or loyalty to any brand of football. My objective is just to win. I've never been one of those that thinks football should be played this way, or there's a right or wrong way. I've never felt like that. All I want to do is win. The football that I put on the pitch is only because I believe it's the most effective and if I start thinking with the players that we've got or what's necessary in this league, it's just me coming up with something that's effective. Training in pre-season will be all geared around that.'
Set Piece Focus
Having a more physical team should naturally lead to greater potency at set pieces, another key element of success at this level. The top three teams in terms of set piece goals last season were Coventry (29), Southampton (28), and Millwall (25). It is no coincidence that all three finished inside the top four of the Championship. Blues finished 10th in the set piece table, helped by Priske's final-day header from Kai Wagner's corner, and that is another practice planned for the summer.
'I think it's going to be a huge part of our game,' Davies added. 'We spoke in the week about how many goals we've scored, can we score another five or six goals from set pieces would be the challenge, and with that delivery (Wagner)… and we've got a big striker who wants to attack the ball. Then you add in two centre-backs and a big midfielder in Solis and we've got four in there and I think you need four at this level to be a threat. It's going to be an important part of our style improvement and our planning for next season.'
