Birmingham City pre-season training plans as Chris Davies prepares for the big game

The vast majority of Birmingham City players will report for pre-season training next week.

In doing so, they will meet new manager Chris Davies and his assistant Ben Petty for the first time. Davies has not coached any of the Blues teams before and is looking forward to welcoming them back.

The only players who will be allowed to report on a slightly later date are Juninho Bacuna and Jordan James as they will play for their countries earlier this month. Paik Seung-ho may also be relaxed after spending time completing his military service in South Korea.

Davies will be able to work immediately with the rest of his squad, including new signing Ryan Allsop. The Blues players will report for pre-season trials on Monday and Tuesday.

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They will likely have a day off on Wednesday to recover from testing before the balls go out on Thursday. Davies will have four days at the Elite Performance and Innovation Center before the Blues fly to Austria for a week’s training camp.

In Austria, Davies can really start to pass on information and ideas. The manager will have a week in the mountains to work on the style of play and patterns of play. By the time the Blues return, Davies plans to have dropped his new charges.

“It won’t take me long,” he said. “We have the first week here at the training ground, then we go to Austria for a week. By the end of the trip to Austria, I will have a very good understanding of the level of the players I am working with and the training sessions will be designed to see how they are doing and get to know them personally as well.

“I’ll have a really good idea when we come back from Austria what we have in the building and that will give me more clarity on what we need to bring in to add to that and make sure we have a really robust squad. “