Angry Birmingham City boss Chris Davies makes 'out of sight' claim after Sheffield Wednesday draw
Birmingham City should have been ‘out of sight’ of Sheffield Wednesday during a Tuesday evening draw that saw the Blues equalise in the 99th minute of their Championship clash.
That’s according to Birmingham boss Chris Davies, who ran down to the touchline to celebrate Demarai Gray’s last-gasp leveller to avoid a fifth defeat in their last six matches. The big-spending home side had the better of the numbers at St Andrews and dominated the ball against Henrik Pedersen’s unpaid Owls but found themselves 2-1 down in added time of added time before Gray’s classy intervention.
Davies’ side plundered 20 shots on Ethan Horvath’s goal but landed only five on target. A double defensive error from Eiran Cashin allowed Jamal Lowe to equalise in the first half before Barry Bannan’s swerving free-kick found youngster George Brown at the back post to give Wednesday a lead heading into the final moments.
“Mixed emotions,” Davies said. “There’s an element of relief and happiness with the way we got the equaliser but underlying that, a frustration that we let the game get away from us somehow and turn into that because I thought we should have been winning that game.
"It was a game I felt we were very comfortable in, in the sense of being 1-0 up early, dominating the game, all the territory and all the possession and then one big error led to them somehow finding their way back into the game, which knocked everyone inside the stadium.
"We had to regroup at half-time, came out well and had a couple of big moments, then they go up the other end and free-kick and goal. Poor errors from our point of view, and I was very frustrated, how we were 2-1 down in that game is beyond me.”
Davies was booed for making a triple substitution in the second half and following a hugely dominant promotion from League One last time out finds himself the subject of chatter regarding his future after an underwhelming start to the campaign. Many have fancied Birmingham to double-up on promotion such has been the pressure landed by a £15m transfer outlay, as well as a swathe of pricey Premier League loan additions.
It’s a summer in stark contrast to that of Wednesday of course, whose players battled through news of yet another month of late wage payments to record their third match unbeaten in the league.
"No one is more frustrated than me that that game turned into that sort of a game,” Davies said. “It should have been a game where we're two goals out of sight at half-time and you push on from there from half time. And that's no disrespect to Sheffield because they are a solid team. But we should have done."