Chris Davies reveals Birmingham City fear and what he won’t apologise for
Birmingham City have already played 49 games in their mammoth season and have another 11 to go
Birmingham City’s brutal fixture schedule since the turn of the year has turned Chris Davies into ‘a video coach’.
The international break has given Davies and his Blues players a much needed breather after a run of 30 games in 112 days – a match every 3.7 days.
On top of their gruelling League One campaign, Blues reached the FA Cup fourth round and made it to Wembley for the Vertu Trophy final. As a result, Blues are experiencing their first midweek break since week commencing January 6.
The sheer number of games has forced Davies to reduce his players’ minutes on the training pitches at their base in Henley-in-Arden. Training sessions have become video-based, with low intensity walkthroughs on the grass rather than high-energy efforts.
“It’s just been video coaching to be honest,” Davies told BirminghamLive. “We’ve had no training sessions to work on our game, apart from walking through tactical ideas. We’ve had no actual training sessions for about four months.
“I’ve had to do a lot of my coaching in review sessions in meeting rooms. That’s where the players are having to learn a lot of it.
“I was getting concerned towards the end of February, early March, that we were going to run out of steam. I was so conscious to get to the international break for the reset.
“I prefer to coach on the pitch. They’re long meetings and I don’t apologise for them because I feel they’re necessary.
“I love being on the grass, that’s where you can really practise what you’re working on.
"It’s basically made me be a video coach for the last three months. It’s the same for managers in European competitions, they are playing 60 matches at the top end of the Premier League and they are having to do it all on video really.
“I’ve been around that before, but it has changed how we’ve delivered the message that I want to.”