Birmingham City are expected to come up short in the race for the play-offs despite signing 18 players across the course of the season
Birmingham City manager Chris Davies communicates with his players
Birmingham City manager Chris Davies communicates with his players
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Championship experience. It might not seem essential to have players who’ve played plenty in England’s second tier when you’re laser-focused on the Premier League, but Birmingham City have learnt the hard way that it can’t be overlooked.
Take a look at the teams that are doing well in the Championship this season. Coventry City have led the way for almost the entirety of this season and, uncoincidentally, Frank Lampard’s squad have played the most minutes in the Championship over their careers.
Coventry’s players have played a total of 3,172 matches in the Championship.
Millwall and Middlesbrough are also in the top four in both the actual league table and the one when it comes to Championship experience.
Even Ipswich Town – the other team in the actual top four – haven’t forgotten this key ingredient in the promotion recipe, despite spending one season in the Premier League and casting their recruitment net further afield. Kieran McKenna’s squad have played 2,832 second tier matches.
So, what about Blues? In this league table Chris Davies’ side are 23rd. The squad Blues have assembled has only played 1,637 Championship matches combined.
Blues have signed 18 players during the course of this season but only half of them had tasted life in the Championship before.
James Beadle, Jack Robinson and Patrick Roberts have been Championship regulars in recent seasons, but the others wouldn’t be able to claim it as their Mastermind subject.
Patrick Roberts is one of the few Birmingham City players with plenty of Championship experience
Patrick Roberts is one of the few Birmingham City players with plenty of Championship experience
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You can point to some of Blues’ defeats, particularly away from home, and say that there hasn’t been enough physicality, grit and guts about them – all qualities that you associate with successful Championship teams.
Of the current top-eight, Southampton are the only team that defy the unwritten rule that you need a squad stacked with Championship experience to be successful in this league. All of the others have it in abundance.
That isn’t lost on Blues boss Davies.
“We’re all going to grow and improve as professionals and I think it’s fair to say the team probably has been a bit lower than ideal on Championship experience and minutes,” Davies told BirminghamLive.
“We did sign a few that maybe haven’t got as much game time as we would have liked, but we do have those discussions internally and look at that.
“You look around the league and the teams that do well… for some reason I go back to (Marcelo) Bielsa’s Leeds team and they signed quite a few foreign players and seemed to do well but they did have people like (Stuart) Dallas – but in the main, the teams that do well do have a nucleus of Championship experience so that is something I’m aware of and trying to build into every team selection that I make.
“Even players like Chris Klarer, who has been outstanding and one of the best defenders in the league, it’s his first season in the Championship. Same with Tomoki Iwata. Not that they’ve shown it, they’ve been brilliant, but it’s experience we have maybe been lacking.”
Blues’ squad isn’t lacking in senior players. Davies has regularly fielded starting line-ups with an average age of 28 – Wrexham and Derby County are the only clubs that have consistently named older XIs.
But the 46-game season, which extends beyond 50 when you add in cup games, isn’t like anything players experience in Germany, Spain, France or Portugal.
Players in Germany, where Blues signed Phil Neumann and Marvin Ducksch from, are given Christmas off and it was over the gruelling festive period where this season unravelled. Seven games across three weeks between December 6 and January 1 yielded just three points for Blues.
Maybe Blues’ data-driven machine was too refined and forgot to flag the battle-hardened Championship professionals that have dragged teams like Hull City and Wrexham into promotion contention.
Davies won’t make that mistake again.
“It’s something we will have to look at in the summer,” he admitted. “We’re definitely not going too far the other way.
“It’s nice bringing in a player that is maybe a little bit of an unknown quantity if you think they can make an impact but we can’t have too many of them, we’ve got to make sure we have enough Championship experience.
“We did talk about that and look at that, but they have to be the right ones at the right time.
"I definitely think that’s something we will look at in the summer.”