Chris Davies has described as ‘deluded’ some of the expectation surrounding his team.
But the manager insisted that, come the end of the season, Blues would be ‘where we want to be’.
Davies came out with forthright and impassioned comments during his pre-match press conference today, at the team’s Henley-in-Arden training base.
It was in essence a riposte to criticism that has been chucked his and Blues way during the current sticky run and a reminder for all to remember where they have come from.
He was asked that, eight games into the season, was it fair to suggest the players were adapting to the step up in level to the Championship, as well as himself as a manager?
He replied: “Me as a manager, I don’t think it’s necessarily me adapting to the level. I’m learning all the time and the day I stop learning is the day I stop doing the job because it doesn’t matter who you are, it’s about learning and improving all the time.
“The theory that we were entitled to walk into the Championship and stroll it, is deluded.
“We are a team that has to compete and earn everything we get at this level.
“We are not a team like we were in League One and put a squad together that ultimately should win the league. The expectation therefore (then) should be ‘yes, you should go and win that league’ and I’d completely agree.
“But when you are going into a league where many teams, like Wrexham, like others, have heavily invested, then we have to compete and earn it. And any idea that it was going to be a stroll through the Championship was incorrect.
“The last time the team was in the Championship it finished 22nd. It’s been a decade since the team has been in the top 10, I believe. So this is just the reality.
“We have to understand that it is a hard league, arguably the most unforgiving league of them all in terms of the competitiveness of all the teams.
“So what we have to do is stay in there, stay in the games, be competitive. We’ll win, we’ll lose, we’ll draw, that’s football. By the end of the season I have got no doubt we will be sitting in a position we’re very happy with.
“But we are going to have to understand it is a very challenging league. And not just for us, but for everyone.
“And you can look across every single round – last night, the night before, the weekend and it will happen this weekend – the results . . . it’s so tight. Anyone can beat anyone. This is the Championship.
“We have to earn everything we can get. Work hard for everything we can get. And in the end I have got no doubt we will be where we want to be.”
Blues head to the aforementioned Wrexham on Friday night, a side who became the biggest Championship summer spenders ever of any non-relegated club. Around £33 million was shelled out on 13 players in the last transfer window.
They have yet to win at home during their period of adjustment after promotion as (distant) runners-up to Blues last season.
Davies was asked why he decided to speak as he did, at this juncture.
“What I want to do is remind and make sure we are together in the sense of we’re a team that has come up from League One.
“Yes, of course we have got great ambitions like other teams in the Championship. But what we need to do is just understand that over a long season, we will get to where we want to get to, but it won’t always be smooth seas. There will always be challenges along the way. And I think it’s important we all recognise that.
“Within here we know what it’s going to be like every game. We know it’s going to be a big challenge each game. You say Sheffield Wednesday, we should have won that game, but they are never given to you. You have to earn it.
“What I really wanted to see, because I knew what was coming in the Championship, I really wanted to see could the team be competitive?
“And that’s what we have been. In every single game we have been competitive. One or two (periods) within games I’ve felt we’ve dropped below our level. But overall I have really liked how we have approached it.
“I still think for the way we have played, there’s probably two or three more points that we should have got right now. If we’d got those two or three points then we are sitting in a very strong position in the league, because it’s so tight.
“That is the league. However you look at it, that is the Championship.
“And it’s something I know that over time, we will get better and better as the season goes on. I really believe that.”
