Birmingham City Manager Chris Davies Addresses Carabao Cup Defeat
Birmingham City boss Chris Davies says his players have already confronted the fallout from their Carabao Cup hammering by Brentford in a frank team meeting – and insists one brutal night will not shake what the club has built.
The Blues were routed 6-1 by the Premier League side at St Andrew’s on Tuesday, a chastening exit that cut straight across the optimism generated by last season’s surge to the League One title and a record points tally under Davies.
There was no attempt to gloss over it.
“You lick your wounds. We sat down and had a meeting about it,” Davies told BBC WM Sport. “A lot of that we have to keep private and confidential, but we have been through that process. We have to pick ourselves up now very quickly. Resilience is the number one thing in football, you need it.”
The message inside the dressing room was clear: absorb it, learn from it, then move on.
“The good news is we have the chance to bounce back against Wrexham and we have put that game to bed now and move on,” Davies said. “It isn’t going to derail anything. We have built something strong here over the past few years and it will take more than one heavy defeat to really dent that.”
Pressure, ownership and a quick response
The scale of the defeat inevitably sharpened focus on the manager, but Davies stressed he remains in close contact with the club’s hierarchy, including chairman Tom Wagner, the public face of owners Knighthead, who has been away from the spotlight since suffering a stroke in February.
“I speak to the board regularly,” Davies said. “I spoke to Tom Wagner on Wednesday. Jeremy Dale is the CEO and I speak to Jeremy. There is a shared disappointment, but equally we know we have a great opportunity on Friday night.”
He does not pretend the job is a calm one.
“I've always felt pressure. We are a bad week away from being under huge pressure here because you just have to win in football – it is the nature of the beast,” he said. “It is not something I concern myself with. There is pressure in management.
“You are only as good as your last game – and our last game was a poor one, but if you turn that around with a couple of good wins and performances, it can feel very different.”
Wrexham at home now becomes more than just another league fixture. It is the first chance to show whether Birmingham’s response matches their manager’s words.
