Chris Davies emphatically answered the burning question in first Birmingham City interview

Measured, professional and knowledgeable. Those are the three words I would use to describe Chris Davies’ first interview as Birmingham City manager.

Davies sat down with in-house TV cameras to discuss his decision to become Blues’ new manager on his first visit to the training ground on Monday. He spoke for just over 10 minutes about a range of subjects, from his conversations with Knighthead, to recruitment, to his hope of building a team supporters can resonate with.

His interview actually evoked memories of Tom Wagner’s Blues TV debut in July last year. While Davies is an expert in a different field, he appeared as polished and professional as Wagner on camera.

When the subject of playing styles came up, Davies was engaging and unflappable. It is clearly a topic he enjoys speaking about, which isn’t always the case with managers. Davies is confident and comfortable communicating his football beliefs.

READ: The 32-goal striker and other Spurs starlets Chris Davies can sign for Blues

READ: I loved working under Chris Davies at Celtic - he is ready for Birmingham City

His ability to communicate will be absolutely essential in this job. Not only to get his messages across to the players, but also to ensure supporters can understand exactly what Davies is trying to implement.

St Andrew’s hasn’t been the home of exciting, possession-based attacking football before. Davies is trying to change a culture and he will need everyone to buy in. In order to stop the jitters when the goalkeeper and two centre-backs are playing the ball between themselves in the hope of inviting an opposition press, Davies needs to get the masses on board.

When Davies described his style of football, he made it clear that he doesn’t want Blues to be ‘passive in any way’. Having the ball is not the victory, hurting the opposition when you have it is what’s important. Too many sides are happy to have the ball and count up the shots that never trouble a goalkeeper, then use that as a metric for a good performance.

Davies doesn’t want that. “It’s about effective football. It’s not about football for any aesthetic purpose,” he said.

He oozed confidence and seems to possess a stern exterior that will be needed when players step out of line. The buck never stops with an assistant coach, which Davies has been for the past 14 years, it all comes back to the manager.

“I’ve been quite clear for a long time that I’m a head coach, I’m a manager,” he insisted. “I’ve had a lot of responsibility at big clubs and always considered myself as a second number one. I’m the decision maker and that’s something I’m comfortable with and actually prefer.”

After two decades behind-the-scenes, Davies has left us in no doubt that he is ready to be the number one.