Davies - My Plans For City

Chester City Manager Simon Davies

Last week Chester City secured the services of Simon Davies as their first team manager on a permanent basis. The former Manchester United star was said to be delighted to have put pen to paper to a contract that will be keeping him here at the Deva Stadium until 2010. We caught a quick word with the newly appointed City boss to find out what his aims and ambitions are in the City hot-seat.

“I have the same ambitions as a coach as I did when I was playing football as a ten year old,” said Davies who once scored a Champions League goal for Manchester United. After a year career in the football league with Luton Town, Macclesfield Town and Rochdale, Davies joined League of Wales side Bangor City and it is there his coaching dream began. “Whilst coaching in the League of Wales under Peter Davenport, who I had known from my time at Macclesfield, I received a call from Jim Hackett and he gave me the opportunity to go and work for him with the Chester youth set up. We’ve now had two successful years with the youth teams, I was asked to look after the reserve team last season and now I’ve been given this opportunity by the club’s owner.

“Having the honour of being offered the post as manager feels great,” explained Davies. “ We’re in a bit of a dogfight at the moment and I would be lying if I was to say that I’m happy with the position we find ourselves in at the moment. But now that I’ve been put in charge that will help the players and we can start addressing who we want to keep for next season.

“In terms of next season I don’t think we need a great deal, in my opinion we just need three of four players to strengthen the team. We’ve got the experiences that myself and all the young guys have had this season and they will become very good squad players next season. It’s invaluable the experiences that they’ve had this year and I don’t think we need to go out and look for a lot of new players.

The planning now begins for Davies who immediate aim is to bring stability back to the team performance on the pitch. “Firstly, we need to make sure we don’t have the same experience again at the wrong end of the table next season. Secondly, get stability back into the team’s performance and then my ultimate goal is to aim for the plays-offs and hopefully challenge for promotion. I know that might sound like a dumb thing to be saying in the position we’re in right now, but we’ve gone to Peterborough United and Wycombe Wanderers and got beaten 1-0, at Hereford United we drew 2-2, we beat Darlington 2-1 and Stockport County was 0-0 on a dreadful pitch before it was called off. We’ve not been thrashed 6-0, 4-0 or anything like that by any of the top teams in this league in the last seven or eight games and this is with a young squad of players. I’m not saying the youngsters in the squad won’t have a role to play, but with three of four new faces with experience at this level, if we have that, then we’ll have a good mixture of experience and youth and I think we would have a good chance.”

The newly appointed City boss has been delighted by the way City’s youngsters have quickly adapted to life in the first team and hopes to see more youngsters coming through the ‘conveyor belt’ in the years to come. “The team spirit is excellent and the youth system conveyor belt is now working,” beamed Davies. “Given the opportunity at the right times the young players will come in and do well. Paul McManus has come in and done really well as has Chris Holroyd. Glenn Rule did well at Peterborough along with Sean Kelly and Kevin Roberts seems to have played in almost every single game this year. But when we talk about the young players we tend to forget the likes of James Vaughan and Laurence Wilson. They’ve no age to speak of really and yet you think of them as regular first team players. These are nineteen, twenty year old lads playing in the first team, so we’ve got the basis of a good young side forming. You can look at Paul Linwood and say he’s a seasoned pro, but he’s still only young and with a few move heads of his calibre with experience at this level, hopefully we’ll do well.”