Chris Davies sat down with BirminghamLive’s Alex Dicken and discussed his coaching career and plans for Birmingham City at the club’s training base
Chris Davies walks into the canteen at Birmingham City’s training facility with a cocky and forceful demeanour. Two weeks into his first job as number one, the new manager has taken time out of his hectic schedule to entertain and inform us for ninety minutes.
After a 20-year coaching career motivated by his disappointment at having his dream of being a professional football player dashed, Davies, now 39, has made the move into management. Davies has put a lot of effort into staying in the game and moving up the ranks despite without a large name or playing career to help him.
“The coaches at the time encouraged me when I finished playing,” he recalls. I would hear coaches Brendan Rodgers and Brian McDermott remark, “You should stay in the game; you’ll be a really good coach,” later in my career. That’s the right route for you.
It’s my destiny, my dad would always tell me, and he would always give me encouragement. I’ve always believed that I could speak, lead, and had a solid understanding of football. I led teams as captain all my life. I also had the impression that I might be a very effective coach.
But in order to make it a reality, I would need to go through a protracted process of gaining expertise and reputation as I wouldn’t have the major playing career to fall back on. From then to now, it has effectively been a 20-year journey. I’ve always known that I want to be a coach, but as I travelled down that path, I realised that I also wanted to be the best coach possible—I wanted to be extremely successful and reach the pinnacle of the coaching profession.
Rodgers is a key character in Davies’ narrative. During their 13 years together, he gave Davies a platform at Swansea City and progressively extended his responsibilities until Davies was head coach at Celtic and Leicester City.
In the summer of last year, Ange Postecoglou actively pursued Davies for a position on his Tottenham Hotspur coaching staff. Spurs finished sixth in the Premier League thanks to their elegant, audacious game that enthralled neutrals while frightening the team’s own supporters. Davies was once again the driving force on the training pitch. Although it seemed inevitable that he would leave the Spurs after the season, he may now benefit from Rodgers and Postecoglou’s experience.
Davies stated, “They both have very clear goals for their team.” It’s easy to lose focus and fail to understand what you’re trying to accomplish as a manager because there will be many opposing viewpoints thrown at you from all directions. However, what both of those guys have done is establish a very clear vision for the look and style of football they want their team to play.
Everything just kind of grows and develops from there. The most important lesson I took away from each of them was that. The lesson here is that there is no right or wrong approach—you just need to be true to your own abilities. They both have distinct personalities when it comes to how they handle people and various circumstances.
When it comes to the standards they establish, they are both extremely strict. Things I spoke about earlier in terms of the environment we are creating here, with each department being very organised, hard-working and innovative, they would both be very demanding around the clubs I worked at to raise standards. They are both excellent bosses who have taught me a lot about their respective fields.
“Having said that, I was acutely aware that it was about me forming my own identity as a coach and what I won’t do in this role or any role I do is change one little thing about myself. I promise to remain authentic throughout; nothing needs to and won’t alter. I’ll be myself and have an effect in my own unique manner.
Davies is a coach who wants the ball and will demand his team play on the front foot, ‘without being passive in any way’ he stresses. He has created his own manifesto on the way football should be played by studying and sampling the way other coaches in other countries operate.
When Davies left Leicester in 2023 he travelled around Europe and spent time with five different clubs to broaden his knowledge. One of those he shadowed was Niko Kovac, the former Croatia and Bayern Munich manager, who was then in charge of German side Wolfsburg.
Asked to explain his influences – a question which doesn’t always inspire riveting responses from managers – Davies seemed enthused. “For my vision of football, I have taken a mix of a whole host of nations,” he says.
“At the very heart, I’m British. The spirit and energy and the intensity that comes from the English game is at the heart of my playing idea and football philosophy.
“I love the coordination of the Italians and especially how they defend. I’m a great admirer of the work of Arrigo Sacchi in the 4-4-2 press and how the Italians are so well organised in that phase of the game.
“The Germans are famous for their transitional play. You think of Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool team, I have really enjoyed learning and integrating the use of transitions into my coaching philosophy as well.
“The ball possession side, a lot of that comes from Spain and the way they are able to dominate the ball and use it well. Some of the positional stuff that I will do in possession comes from there.”
This is a coach who has learned from the best and possesses a desire to become the best. Blues’ owners Knighthead are striving to be world class and Davies has seen exactly what that looks like at Liverpool, Celtic and Tottenham.
One of the things that impressed Blues’ hierarchy when they spoke to Davies was his ‘meticulous planning’. He referenced Celtic’s 69-game unbeaten run in domestic football under Rodgers and him and explained how they prepared for Scottish minnows in the same way they prepared for Champions League nights against Barcelona and Manchester City. No stone was left unturned.
To Davies, that is what elite looks like. When he drives into Blues’ training complex, the Elite Performance and Innovation Centre, in Henley-in-Arden, Davies wants to make sure the first team are living up to the sign on the gate.
“That’s how I am and I will be making sure that that’s clear to every staff member and every player. I want the best coaching sessions, I want the most hard-working team, I want to be the most defensively solid team, the most exciting attacking team, the most prepared team in terms of analysis and the work we do around performance and injury prevention.
“Everything we do, I want it to be elite. As you drive in, you drive past a sign that says Elite Performance Centre, so we need to be really ambitious in how we approach that. My job is to drive those standards day-to-day and make sure everybody understands that we want to be the best at everything. If we can do that and all have that collective mindset then we can really do something impressive.”
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