Birmingham City Manager Davies Shifts Tactical Approach After 10th-Place League Finish
Key Points
- Birmingham City finished 10th in the 2025-26 Championship season, their best result since the 2011-12 season when they competed in Europe.
- Manager Chris Davies won League One with a record-breaking 111 points using possession-based football but is adding physicality and direct play for the Championship.
- The club signed August Priske, Jhon Solis, and Carlos Vicente in January and Dael Fry in the summer, with Priske scoring in a Carabao Cup win at Swansea.
Davies identified physicality as essential for progression in England's second tier. "When I reflected on the season, I thought for us to take the next step and progress, physicality is going to be really important. The game now is a lot of man-to-man pressing, a lot of set-piece emphasis. You need the physical capacity to deal with it," he explained.
The club's January additions—August Priske, Jhon Solis, and Carlos Vicente—benefited from a half-season acclimatization to the Championship and are now ready for a full campaign. Priske, a 22-year-old Danish target-man, scored the opening goal in Birmingham's Carabao Cup win at Swansea, achieved with only 39 per cent possession, suggesting the tactical evolution. He also netted against Barcelona in a fixture at St Andrew's last month. Colombian midfielder Solis scored in that Barcelona match and has proven popular with supporters, while Spanish winger Vicente provided the assist at Swansea.
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Defensive reinforcement arrived through Dael Fry, a 6ft 4in centre-back with nearly 300 Championship appearances, who is expected to adapt quickly to Davies' system.
Davies began implementing tactical adjustments during the final weeks of last season. Birmingham sat in 17th place in mid-April before the international break prompted Davies to reconsider his approach. "I started thinking about being a little bit more flexible with the shape we were using and how we were positioning ourselves, but focusing more on more direct play, more transitions and more set-pieces if possible," Davies said. The Blues finished on an unbeaten five-game run to secure their top-10 finish.
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The manager remains committed to the pressing principles that proved effective throughout 2025-26. "I don't think any team last season in the Championship really played through our press consistently. I thought it was really effective for us," he stated. However, his team will employ greater directness once they regain possession, rather than solely relying on the technical circulation that dominated their League One title run.
Davies' evolution reflects the reality of Championship football's demands for both possession quality and physical resilience—a balance crucial for Birmingham's ambitions to return to the Premier League.
Sources: Sky Sports and other international news outlets.
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