![\"Chris](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0_JS383307239-1.jpg\")
Chris Davies, manager of Birmingham City<\/p>\nChris Davies was speaking after Birmingham City beat Preston North End at DeepdaleChris Davies, manager of Birmingham City<\/p>\n
Being \u2018brilliant at the basics of football\u2019 was the key to Birmingham City\u2019s<\/a> battling victory at Preston.<\/p>\n That\u2019s the verdict of Chris Davies<\/a> who delivered that very clear message to his players before they ended Preston\u2019s unbeaten record at Deepdale.<\/a><\/p>\n Phil Neumann netted from a first half set piece before Blues protected their lead heroically in the second half with a backs-to-the-wall defensive job.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was an excellent win for us and we fully deserved it,\u201d Davies reflected after Blues ended their four-game winless run.<\/p>\n \u201cWe started really brightly and I was really happy with the start we made. You know what it\u2019s going to be like here, they\u2019re a good team in good form.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had to start well and I thought we did that aggressively, we were strong in the duels and we looked bright in possession.<\/p>\n \u201cWe got forward well a few times and we were rewarded with a good set piece goal. I really felt we could have gone two up when Lewis (Koumas) had a chance.<\/p>\n \u201cSecond half we still had moments, but as it grew you knew they would put bodies forward. They are quite a big team, quite direct and put a lot of balls into the box.<\/p>\n \u201cSpirit and togetherness, desire to defend your box are part of the basics of football \u2013 I said to the players before the game we need to be brilliant at the basics tonight.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t remember winning a game off a set piece. We\u2019re due that. We\u2019ve been working on it and it\u2019s paid off.\u201d<\/p>\n Get the latest Blues headlines sent straight to your phone<\/p>\n BirminghamLive has its very own Birmingham City<\/a> WhatsApp community to deliver the latest headlines straight to your phone. Just click this link<\/a> to receive daily Blues content and breaking news. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don\u2019t like our community, you can check out any time you like. Click on the name at the top of your screen while in WhatsApp and click ‘Exit Group’. Read our Privacy Notice.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chris Davies was speaking after Birmingham City beat Preston North End at DeepdaleChris Davies, manager of Birmingham City…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,1205,748,8372,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-518165","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-birmingham-city-fc","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-chris-davies-football-coach","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115414720159180411","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}