They are fond of playing Welcome to the Jungle by Guns N’ Roses at St Andrew’s, an appropriate choice as the club prepared for the badlands of League One this season. But promotion has been achieved in serene style. Birmingham City look on the up again.
Under Chris Davies, Birmingham have secured their return to the Championship with six games to spare. They already have 95 points, the League One record of 103 all but an inevitability. The top scorers with the best defensive record, no one could live with them.
The manner of their dominance is well illustrated by the possession statistics. Blues have had over 67 per cent of the ball this season, the best since they started collecting such records for League One over a decade ago. In fact, only Pep Guardiola’s great Manchester City sides have ever bettered it in the top four tiers during this period.
It is redemption of sorts for the club’s owners, the American firm Knighthead Capital Management, among whom NFL legend Tom Brady is a minority investor. Given the resources and ambition, relegation in that first season really should not have happened.
Harsh lessons were learned. The misstep of ditching John Eustace while on a high was followed by a major error of judgment in turning to Wayne Rooney before serious illness forced Tony Mowbray to step away. Gary Rowett could not keep them up. It was a mess.
Supporters were frustrated but recognised that possibilities remained. They have seen the infrastructure improvements. Not just the big talk of a 60,000 stadium and a sports quarter emerging in what is a relatively run-down part of the city, but the little things.
Over £15m was spent on infrastructure projects over the summer, taking the total spend in excess of £35m since Knighthead’s investment in July 2023, having spent £1m alone on improving the pitch prior to that. The injection of funds was much needed.
There had been only two working showers in the home dressing room when they arrived. Those details had been neglected. Crucially, it is not just the players enjoying an improved environment but supporters too. The matchday experience has been transformed.
The newly-established fan park can house 1,200 supporters and, though free to enter, research shows the average spend per fan on a matchday is now up 700 per cent, with the area at capacity every home game, queues forming many hours before kick-off.
Rebranded as St Andrew’s @ Knighthead Park, a visit there is a different experience these days. It is fully open for starters, accommodating almost 30,000 again. It is the atmosphere, the live music, the fan park, all making it a place where people want to be again.
Asking Davies about this in the summer, he said: “It has been the level of organisation, that has stood out for me. They are really experienced operators and very ambitious but they have got a real plan as well. It is not just a case of them having a pipedream.”
£15m signing Jay Stansfield’s shot map for Birmingham City this season
Results on the pitch have mirrored that improved mood. It has not been done cheap. Jay Stansfield’s signing at £15m more than quadrupled the League One transfer record but bagging the popular striker was crucial as a statement of intent to the club’s supporters.
And do not underestimate the work done by Davies in bringing overdue clarity. It was an imaginative but shrewd choice, the right man at the right time. This is Davies’ first job in management but he has vast experience as Brendan Rodgers’ long-time assistant before furthering his development under Ange Postecoglou at Tottenham.
Speaking to Davies in 2023, he talked of his time counting the passes as a kid watching Watford and being sold on the possession game. “People say he is a purist,” he said of Guardiola’s style. “I fundamentally disagree.” For Davies, this was pure pragmatism.
It has guided his thinking throughout this season even as some supporters urged him to pursue a more gung-ho approach. “I think this is the most effective way to play,” he reiterated when speaking to him on the eve of this campaign. “It is what I believe in.”
He knew the challenge that lay ahead. Opponents who were outmatched were going to make it as difficult as they could. “If the opponent is just kind of sat in a block, we have to make them run somehow,” he explained. Patience was always going to be essential.
Tomoki Iwata’s events by zone and passing sonar for Birmingham City in League One
He added: “The idea is that if you can circulate the ball and stretch the opposition, and do that at a good speed, then the gaps inside will eventually open up. We see it so many times, it does take until around the 60th or 70th minute to see those gaps open up.”
And so, this has been a controlled demonstration of superiority for the most part. Ben Davies, on loan from Rangers, added a cool head at the back alongside Christoph Klarer. Tomoki Iwata kept it tidy ahead of them. Defensively, they have been rock solid.
How Chris Davies tightened Birmingham City up for their 2024/25 promotion push
Perhaps surprisingly, Birmingham did not win a game by three goals until after the turn of the year and did not score four in a game until February. But they did not need to. From August, they won seven on the bounce for the first time in the league since 1946.
After the setback of defeat to bottom club Shrewsbury in November, they responded by winning eight in a row in all competitions, culminating in victory on Boxing Day in front of a sell-out crowd at St Andrew’s. Davies talked of his team becoming a different animal.
Highlights of the Sky Bet League One match between Birmingham and Barnsley
That sense of a side still improving, evidenced by putting four past Shrewsbury second time around and then bashing Barnsley for six, is a source of optimism. Keshi Anderson has opened tight defences. Kieran Dowell has improved the attacking set-pieces. Willum Willumsson, with his deceptively subtle touch, is adapting.
It has been a learning experience for all of them in this most relentless of seasons. They are already 53 games in, 39 won, and most played with a target on their back, the team to beat. There is still a Wembley final in the Vertu Trophy on Sunday.
In Birmingham’s 150th anniversary year, the double is on. And while the heroes of this campaign might not yet be able to bank on a mural to accompany the images of Trevor Francis and Jude Bellingham along Cattell Road, momentum is with the club again.
The mural of club legends Trevor Francis and Jude Bellingham outside St Andrew’s
What comes next? That is the question on everyone’s lips at Birmingham. Davies talks of “taking the club on a journey” and knows that the expectations are not going away in the Championship. “If you are thinking about slowing down, you are at the wrong club.”
Will they be able to play this way against better opposition? “We play a very specific style and I do not envisage wholesale changes. We played against Newcastle in the FA Cup and the principles were the same but I was aware the game would look different.”
It did look different. Birmingham had their lowest possession stats of the season seeing under 40 per cent of the ball. But Iwata still scored a screamer and St Andrew’s roared the team on as they pushed the Premier League side all the way in a five-goal thriller.
“Positionally, there were adaptations we had to make to prepare for that game. So that is an example of higher-level opposition and the little adaptations. Moving forward, it is a case of seeing what the challenge is and making sure that it is set up accordingly.
“The principle for me to try to be aggressive and press. I think that is very important and fundamental to how I want the team to play. And then to try naturally to dominate possession as well is something that I do not think I ever veer too far away from.
“But I never look at it as, ‘I just want it to look this way’. It is what is most effective, that is all it is. If I thought the most effective thing was to kick it long or play counter-attack, I would have no problem doing it. It is a game. It is about finding the best way to play it.”
As the chant bellowed down from the Tilton Road Stand puts it, Davies knew exactly what Birmingham needed this year. The demand, as their most famous song of all goes, is that this club Keep Right On. They are out of the jungle but the journey continues.
