{"id":820021,"date":"2026-03-12T03:05:47","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T03:05:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/820021\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T03:05:47","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T03:05:47","slug":"chris-davies-focuses-on-next-game-as-birmingham-edge-towards-play-offs-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/820021\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Davies focuses on next game as Birmingham edge towards play-offs \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Birmingham manager Chris Davies will not pay too much attention to the Championship table after watching his side move to within five points of the top six following a hard-fought 1-0 win over QPR.<\/p>\n

Blues scored the only goal of the game in the sixth minute at St Andrew\u2019s when January signing Ibrahim Osman carved out an opening for fellow winger Patrick Roberts, who duly converted his fifth goal for the club.<\/p>\n

They might have extended their lead at various intervals throughout a dominant first-half performance, but QPR did remain in touch and eventually threw more caution to the wind in the latter stages of the contest.<\/p>\n

Roberts\u2019 early strike proved decisive and earned Blues a welcome victory after they had suffered three-consecutive defeats prior to this success.<\/p>\n

\"It<\/a>\"Shelbourne<\/a><\/p>\n

It also moved them to within five points of the play-offs, but for Davies there are already reasons for optimism and pride.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got 52 points now, the last time the team was in this league it got 50 points,\u201d Davies said. \u201cFor the last decade the team has been fighting relegation in this league.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re making great strides. I\u2019m not thinking about anything other than the next game, I\u2019m not thinking about play-offs, what I am thinking about is the strides we\u2019re making.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I\u2019ve said all along and I will continue to say it, it was never going to be a stroll up to the Premier League.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about competing in this division, making our mark, growing and with continuity and time we will get better and better. There\u2019s no doubt about it and that\u2019s what you have to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at all the teams at the top of the league they\u2019ve been together for a few years and built. That\u2019s what we need to continue to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf anything, tonight has been a big step forward because we\u2019re looking like a team that\u2019s going to be in this league next season.\u201d<\/p>\n

QPR boss Julien Stephan, meanwhile, did not hold back in his assessment of his side\u2019s performance \u2013 their fourth-straight Championship defeat \u2013 and demanded a response in the remaining weeks of this season.<\/p>\n

Dissatisfied by his side\u2019s showing in the opening 45 minutes, Stephan did acknowledge an improved display in the second period, despite leaving Birmingham empty handed, but he understands the need for an upturn in form.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery embarrassing in the first half,\u201d he summarised. \u201cThere was no quality, no intensity.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the first three minutes I think we lost the first seven aerial duels. It\u2019s impossible to play football if you don\u2019t win your duels and we concede the early goal.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was better in the second half, but it\u2019s very difficult to get a result if you only play for 45 minutes in this league, especially away from home. We need to learn from this.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are completely aware of the situation. It\u2019s not time to panic. We know why, but we cannot complain.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome players will come back soon, but we have the same group until perhaps the international break.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must quickly find the solution, the personality on the pitch \u2013 when we do, we are able to do some good things on the pitch but we must do that from the first second.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Birmingham manager Chris Davies will not pay too much attention to the Championship table after watching his side…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":820022,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,236124,748,9030,29405,393,4884,236123,26212,10031,16,15],"class_list":["post-820021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-birmingham","tag-birmingham","tag-birmingham-vs-qpr","tag-britain","tag-championship","tag-chris-davies","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-julien-stephan","tag-qpr","tag-soccer","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116213994468513569","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820021","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=820021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/820022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}