Chris Davies goes to obsessive lengths to avoid Birmingham City shock
Birmingham City have lost just three of their 32 matches this season. They have won 23 of those games to give Chris Davies a win percentage of 71.8 – a record which puts him above all of his predecessors in the St Andrew’s hot-seat.
Even in League One, where Blues are the big fish in a small pond, those numbers are extraordinary. Blues were promised shocks, but Davies’ sharks have mercilessly ripped through third tier waters to put themselves on top of the table at the halfway stage.
Blues have been able to win so many matches because they are not only the best team, they are also the best prepared. Cutting edge equipment fills the rooms at Blues’ training base in Henley-in-Arden and in Davies they have a manager who leaves no stone unturned.
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Davies, 39, started out as an opposition analyst on Brendan Rodgers’ coaching staff 15 years ago and that grounding remains pertinent in his approach today in his first job as a manager.
“I studied coaches, teams constantly and learned so much working with a good manager like Brendan,” says Davies. “It’s a great role. I saw then how valuable it was. Know thy enemy. If you know what the opposition are going to do and you know what they’re thinking because you’ve analysed them so much, you’re in a really strong position. It’s strategy, basically.
“I never lost that. I still do it now. I watch the opposition at least 10 games before we play them. Every opponent. I would do it till late at night. Sometimes I don’t watch the full game, I watch half an hour of the first half and 15-20 minutes of the second half but I try and make sure I watch 10.
“Then I need to map out what they did at the start, who’s been in form, who’s been out of form, why they’ve changed shape, and you see the journey of the season. Without knowing the coach, you get to learn how he’s thinking and that helps a lot.”
Blues’ head analyst Jack Kriskinans – who they headhunted from Danish side Midtjylland in the summer – takes on a lot of the legwork but Davies has a tendency to micromanage. Kriskinans also watches 10 games on the opposition – not the easiest thing to do when Blues are playing twice per week – and files a report to Davies. Some managers want three main points of analysis, Davies wants to know everything.
The part which Davies is now responsible for is creating a game-plan using all of the points deciphered from the opposition analysis. That, he says, is the ‘art of the coach’.
Davies continues: “Opposition analysis is never about what they do, it’s about what you need to do. You can explain what the opposition do but anyone can do that, that’s just a report, the detail is what you need to do based on what they do.
“The detail always belongs to the opposition. Regardless of how you want to play in possession, the detail of how you’re going to play is going to be directly related to what the opposition do. No matter what team you are, no matter how good your players are, if they press you high that influences you. If they drop off, that impacts you.
“People will say it doesn’t matter about the opposition but it has to. It’s a game. There’s two teams, it has to matter what the opposition do. First I need to work out what the opposition strategies are but the art of the coach is to say that’s what they do but here’s what we need to do about it.
“There’s usually one part of an opposition’s game that they are very good at. If you stop them from being good in the game that gives you a big chance.”
Blues have two large screens – ‘like the Monday Night Football One’ – which Davies uses to show his players how they are going to negate the opposition’s threats and exploit their weaknesses. One hangs on the wall in the meeting room at the Elite Performance and Innovation Centre, the other is in the home dressing room at St Andrew’s.
“The players have got better from when I started at taking information on board, a lot better,” the Blues manager adds. “They can sit through a meeting now and they can listen. A lot of them have been educated at academies now and it’s completely different to how it was before. They have meetings and understand the game tactically a lot more.
“Players now want the information, whereas back in the day it was ‘Don’t give them too much’. You can’t give them too much but I’ve found that they want guidance.”
Davies’ obsessive nature and his players’ ability to carry out instructions are two of the reasons why Blues have only been beaten by Fulham, Charlton and Shrewsbury Town this season. The old saying fail to prepare, prepare to fail isn’t lost on Blues’ rookie manager.
“I only feel fully confident going into a game if I’ve done a thorough analysis. I’ve spoken to some coaches who prefer to go into the game a bit blind or get a feel for it as the game’s going on, but if I go in like that I’m not prepared, I need to know everything about the opposition.”
