Blues can take encouragement from where they’re at, as we reach the first third of the season.
They head into the international break on the back of another disappointing away defeat, at Middlesbrough, 11th in the table.
But Chris Davies feels good signs came out of that game and, taking stock of how they have fared so far on their return to the Championship, he is relatively satisfied.
“We are 15 games in now, pretty much a third of the way through the season.
“We have shown that we can compete, which was the first challenge. We have shown that we can win at home and away.
“We have just got to keep building.
“We should be excited and encouraged by what we have seen these first 15 games. It is a hard league but one we can compete in.”
“I think we have improved,” adds Davies. “It’s a third of the way through and we’ve seen a bit of everything. In the last few weeks I think our performance level has improved.
“We are creating more chances than we were early on in the season.
“I think we’ve been fairly defensively solid but we’ve added more of a goal threat, so that’s been the improvement.
“It’s a really hard league, it’s so demanding. As I said to the players, we’re always disappointed when we lose a match but underlying that we’ve shown we can compete against some really good teams home and away.
“We need to refresh now for the winter months. The fact we know we can compete, we know we can get results, we know we can play well; it bodes well.”
Despite having the lion’s share of proceedings and creating chances, it was again away day woe for Blues at the Riverside – a fifth defeat on their travels.
Demarai Gray equalised Dael Fry’s opener, but Blues went behind just before the break when Hayden Hackney instinctively flicked in Aidan Morris’ shot off the outside of his boot, wrong-footing James Beadle.
Jay Stansfield had a great chance to restore parity just after half-time but seemed caught in two minds whether to find Marvin Ducksch, or go himself at goal – in the end his final shot was tame from the left side of the area. And other openings were spurned, too
Davies reflects: ” A very frustrating one. I wanted us to be more aggressive than maybe we have in previous away games and we did that, we really unsettled Middlesbrough.
“They didn’t get any rhythm or control on the match, which was excellent, and we did make chances, but we didn’t turn those chances into goals and gave away to pretty sloppy ones ourselves.
“We responded after going down in the game but conceding just before half-time was really frustrating and a soft goal, I know it took a good deflection, but it was a really poor goal from our point of view.
“We were up the pitch, we didn’t really keep hold of the ball well enough. We got back, a lot of numbers behind the ball, and it has just ricocheted through. That can happen. But we should have been better.
“That gave them something to hang onto and they managed to do it.
“It was all us second-half but we just couldn’t get the ball in the goal.
“There was enough there – we did create the more chances, we had more of the ball, we had more of the territory, we had all the things you want to try and be dominant in a match, but we just couldn’t turn it into a win.”
A major blot on proceedings was the loss of Paik Seung-ho, who dislocated his shoulder when falling awkwardly after making a first minute aerial challenge.
Davies: “He’s obviously landed on his shoulder and looked to be in a lot of discomfort which is not nice.
“He’s a massive player for us and hasn’t been injured much at all, to see him down like that was really unpleasant.”
