Tag: bluenose

2010 – 2012: Assistant Manager at Swansea City to Brendan Rodgers. 

Rodgers wanted a trusted aid to lead on performance analysis, casting a critical eye over the tactics and organisation of opponents.  In season one, they clinched promotion via the play-offs at Wembley Stadium before narrowly missing out on a top-half Premier League finish by goals scored.  A student of the game in every sense, during this period, he penned a newspaper column and attended press conferences to gauge the demands placed upon 21st-century managers, sharing his boss’ meticulous attention to detail. 

2012 – 2015: Head of opposition analysis at Liverpool to Brendan Rodgers.

Matching his ambition Davies accompanied Rodgers to Liverpool in the summer of 2012.  On Merseyside, posted as Head of Opposition Analysis, he continued to dedicate 70 hours in preparation for each match, being a key component as the Reds mounted a season-long title tilt in 2013/14.  In 2015, he obtained his U.E.F.A. Pro Licence.  

2016: First Team Coach at Reading to Brian McDermott.

A popular number two to McDermott, Davies was credited for his understanding of players and their tendencies on and off the training pitch.

2016 – 2019: Assistant Manager at Celtic to Brendan Rodgers.

Davies reunited with Rodgers in July 2016 and became a serial winner.  Across two full seasons at Parkhead, Celtic achieved back-to-back trebles, completing the first as Invincibles whose unbeaten run stretched to 69 matches. Under the pressure of suffocating expectations in Glasgow, domestic dominance met chastening Champions League tests head-on, but before departing for Leicester, a third treble was cued up.

2019 – 2023: Assistant Manager at Leicester City to Brendan Rodgers.

The juxtaposing tactical approaches made at Celtic between controlling league fixtures and suffering in European football facilitated a move to Leicester City, again as number two to Rodgers in 2019. 

A team totalised by transition became focused on possession and territory, yet still created an environment where Jamie Vardy won the Golden Boot and the team recorded consecutive fifth-place finishes in the Premier League.

The second of these ran parallel to the club winning the FA Cup for the very first time, and a few months later they beat a Manchester City side orchestrated by Pep Guardiola to lift the Community Shield, somebody that Davies admires for his pragmatism.  When Leicester reached their maiden European semi-final, as had been the structure at Celtic, he led training on a daily basis, operating in tandem with the sports science department and video analysts.

Between April and June 2023, he visited five clubs in five different countries (Atalanta, Benfica, Monaco, Villarreal and Wolfsburg) where ideas chimed with a football ideology that can be traced back to counting the passing sequences from the stands at Vicarage Road.

2023 – 2024: Senior Assistant Coach at Tottenham Hotspur with Ange Postecoglou.

During his tenure as Senior Assistant Coach to Postecoglou, Davies was courted by a number of clubs, but the Australian had him hooked by a desire to make Spurs the top-flight’s most intense team, and a promise to support his burgeoning personal ambitions when the time to take the right opportunity to step into management presented itself.

2024 onwards : First Team Manager at Birmingham City.

On Thursday the 6th of June, Davies was named the new Men’s First Team Manager at Birmingham City, signing a four-year contract with the Club ahead of the 2024/25 League One season.