After yet another defeat, Chris Davies addressed his Birmingham City future – making a damning admission in the process.
Derby defeat sums up the season, says Davies
Despite only earning promotion back to the Championship last season, the pressure was on Birmingham to at least reach the playoffs as soon as they splashed out to sign the likes of Kyogo Furuhashi.
So, there is understandable disappointment that the Blues have won just one of their last five games and now sit 10 points adrift of the top six with their playoff hopes all but over.
Davies reacted to another disappointing day at full-time, admitting that defeat against Derby County summed up Birmingham’s season: “Very disappointed with the result and performance, we didn’t deserve anything from the match.
“It’s very frustrating and the story of our season in many ways. If that game was at St Andrews it would look completely different, we would have been on the front foot the entire game but away from home we’ve had many performances like this.
“The strength and personality to really hurt the opposition hasn’t been there and ultimately it’s my responsibility, that’s my job to get that out of the players and put a team on the pitch that can do that.
“Today was a big, big game for our season and it’s even more painful that we lose the game in such a fashion.”
Birmingham City have just found their modern-day Nikola Zigic
Chris Davies looks as if he’s found his very own Nikola Zigic at Birmingham City.
The recruitment will certainly come under fire at the end of the season if things continue to fall at St. Andrew’s. Kyogo has arguably been the most disappointing signing in the Championship this season, whilst big-money Jay Stansfield has failed to adapt to the Championship after success in League One last year.
Ultimately, however, it could be Davies who takes the majority of the blame and even he’s concerned about his job after recent results.
Davies makes “worried” Birmingham admission
In a brutally honest post-match interview, Davies admitted that he’s always worried about his job at Birmingham and has been since the day that he arrived, with the pressure now heating up.
“I’ve worried about my own future since the day I got the job to be honest with you. I knew when we were in League One if I wasn’t top of the league and winning pretty much every game I was going to be under pressure, so I’m just used to it.
“It’s been like that the whole time I’ve been here, and it hasn’t changed since we’ve come up to the Championship.”
It’s certainly a unique role that he finds himself in. Almost every other newly-promoted side in Championship history would be praising their manager for sitting 11th in their first season back in the second tier. At Birmingham, however, expectations have been different.
Davies earned the right to take the Blues through the current campaign, but it remains to be seen whether Tom Wagner and co. believe that he is the man for the job amid their Premier League ambitions.