City have chosen Spurs’ assistant boss Chris Davies to lead them back into the Championship.
The Second City club have plumped for one of Ange Postecoglou’s senior coaches over a string of more experienced bosses. Alex Neil, Paul Heckingbottom and Frank Lampard were three of the names associated with the position but Brum’s chiefs have decided to think outside the box and appointed the 39-year-old on a four-year deal.
It will be viewed as a copycat appointment to the one taken by Ipswich Town who have enjoyed spectacular success with Kieran McKenna during the past couple of seasons. The Tractor Boys lured the Northern Irishman away from Old Trafford to take up his first managerial post and have been rewarded with a place in the Premier League after jumping from the third tier to the first in a couple of seasons.
Leicester City are another club that benefitted from similar thinking 12 months ago, albeit in the Championship, when they snared Enzo Maresca from the backroom team of Pep Guardiola. The Foxes too were promoted before Chelsea set their sights on the Italian last month.
Brum’s co-owner Tom Wagner said: “I’m delighted to welcome Chris to Blues. He’s widely-respected in the game and fulfils our goal to appoint an ambitious, progressive coach. He’s motivated to redefine the club, culture and playing identity.”
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Birmingham’s owners, Knighthead Capital, have invested significant sums in up-grading the infrastructure at St Andrew’s but their first attempt at club ownership ended in disaster as a string of poor decisions - including the catastrophic appointment of Wayne Rooney - left them looking at a spell in the third tier for the first time in three decades.
Birmingham chief executive Garry Cook added: “Chris is a perfect fit for Blues. He is a meticulous planner, with an insatiable appetite for work. He will no focus on building a Championship-ready squad in League One. He is the coach we wanted. Blues is the club he wanted. We’re very pleased he’s here.”
Davies currently holds a high-ranking position with the north Londoners but has earned his reputation on the back of a lengthy association with former Liverpool and current Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers. He has spent considerable time working alongside Rodgers, most notably in Glasgow during his erstwhile boss’s first stint with the club and also at Anfield and, recently, at the King Power Stadium with Leicester City where the pair enjoyed considerable success.
This will be Davies’s first first frontline role in management and the pressure will be on from day one to return the club to the second tier. Brum will be given significant cash to spend as they plot a route back but he will have his work cut out in the first instance, galvanising a group of players who lost their way under Rooney with standards - and results - slipping contributing to their demotion being confirmed on the final day of last season.
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