Davis: Premier League a Million Times Better Friday, 25th Oct 2024 14:08 by Kallum Brisset Town defender Leif Davis says he is embracing the challenge of being a Premier League regular for the first time in his career and believes the Blues will continue to improve as the season progresses. Davis has started all eight league matches so far this season and is the only Town player to have played every minute in the Premier League. While the differences between playing in the top flight in terms of standard of opposition are clear, there are also changes in the schedule with fewer fixtures and longer breaks between matches. Davis says this, along with the experience of coming up against some of the best players in the world, is something he and his teammates are getting used to. “It’s a bit different this year,” he said. “You go Saturday-Saturday and it’s a lot different to Saturday-Tuesday, you get a lot more rest period in between weeks. “The quality of football that you’re playing in this year is a million times better than what it was last year, you can definitely feel it from when you step on the pitch and you don’t see the ball for five or 10 minutes. “It’s the best league in the world, everyone wants to play in it and you’re playing against the best players in the world as well so it’s a challenge every week. “For five or 10 minutes you might not see the ball but you’ve got to be switched on at all times, especially in this league. If you switch off for one second, the ball could be in the back of your net. “In every second of the game you’ve got to be in the game for the full game, which is a lot more mentally and physically demanding. You’ve got to be switched on, you’ve got to be running and in position every time they’ve got the ball. It’s the little details that you’ve got to be switched on for. “It’s very tough. I’ve played every minute and it’s tiring, but it’s an experience that anyone would dream of doing. I want to try and play as many games as I can this year to keep improving and keep taking that step up the ladder. “Personally I just want to keep doing what I was doing last year, getting the assists and helping the team by creating chances for them to score goals and I’ll try and get a few more goals myself. “For the team, we’ve just got to keep working hard and taking it game-by-game and hopefully we can fight to stay up.” Town currently sit outside of the bottom three but remain winless this season, one of four sides in the league yet to register a victory along with Wolverhampton Wanderers, Southampton and Crystal Palace. Despite some positive performances in the early weeks, the recent defeats to West Ham United and Everton have been less encouraging with the Blues far from their best by Davis’s own admission, but feels the team are generally getting stronger week-on-week. He said: “With the games that have gone now we can’t change anything. We didn’t show our identity in the games which was running hard, I think we took our foot off the pedal a little bit in the last two games. “But the lads don’t let it dwell, everyone works hard in training and no-one gets their heads down. We’ve had a good week this week so we’re just going to try and give everything we can on Saturday to hopefully get the first three points of the season. “No [added pressure], the lads never feel any pressure. Especially in the last two years when we were up there towards the top of the leagues, the lads didn’t feel any pressure at all which is a good thing because we stay calm. “We’re near the bottom of the league but we’ve felt no pressure at all, we’ve just got to go out on a Saturday and do what we do and perform well. “The first few games when you’re coming up against Liverpool and Man City you’re going to be nervous playing against the two best teams in England and in the world. Once you’re settling into the games and they’re coming thick and fast, that’s when you start to relax, get composed and do what you do. “That’s what I’ve felt, I feel like I’ve grown into it a lot more being able to come up against and go toe-to-toe with the best wingers in the world. “I would say I’ve done the challenge well in the few games I’ve done that, but there’s a few games where I knew I could have done better. That’s just a learning curve and a learning part of the game.” Reflecting further on the opening weeks of the season when the Blues were handed a baptism of fire by facing Liverpool and Manchester City, Davis says it was a key indicator of the level that Town were going to face this season. “It was a welcome back to the Prem, wasn’t it?” he said. “From last year when we got promoted I didn’t feel as though it sank in properly until that first day when we were stood in the tunnel and you’re looking to your left at [Mohamed] Salah, [Virgil] van Dijk and all the top players in the world. “When you get out on the pitch you can really feel the difference where you think ‘I’m in a game here’. It’s an incredible experience, I’ve loved every single minute of it. “Even though we’ve not got the win we’ve wanted, the boys are loving it as well. We’ve just got to keep our heads down and not let any pressure get to us.” Draws at Brighton and Hove Albion and against Aston Villa have been two of the most positive results of the season so far, and Davis says those performances give the squad belief that they can compete with anybody in the Premier League. He said: “It just shows that we can go toe-to-toe with some of the best teams in the league. We had spells in the game and they had spells in the game, but it shows that we’ve come from behind again in games. We go 1-0 down and we get the goal back, we did that a lot of times last year and the year before in coming from a goal down. “It just shows the strength of the team and how everyone’s connected with each other, everyone works hard for each other and it doesn’t stop until that final whistle. Hopefully that win comes very soon.” Asked to pick out a specific player that he has found difficult to deal with, Davis, who has faced the likes of Salah and Savinho, perhaps surprisingly picked out an individual from the Blues’ trip to the Amex Stadium. “Yeah, especially in the first few games that we played. For Brighton, [Carlos] Baleba,” he said. “For me, he was one of the best players I’ve played against ever. He just looked so clean and so smooth on the ball and he’s still a young lad as well which is mental, I didn’t think he was that young. “It looks like he’s playing with no pressure on his shoulders. Against us he ran the game and it was difficult to get near him, then the games after we’ve watched him and he’s exactly the same. So I would say Baleba at Brighton. “It’s always a different test. You’ve got Salah who is good with the ball at his feet, he’s quick, he can be out the game for 60 minutes and the next thing you know he’s got the ball and he’s scored two. “Adama Traore, you can’t really get close to him or he’s going to send you on the floor or run you down the line. It’s different every week, players have got their own specialities of what they do. “I’m enjoying the challenge and that’s the main thing, it’s going to be a different challenge against [Bryan] Mbeumo on Saturday as well.” Throughout Kieran McKenna’s time at Portman Road, Town have been widely recognised for their intense tactical preparation before matches, even in League One and the Championship. That has only gone up another level in the Premier League, with teams having a much stronger ability to change tactically multiple times during a single match. Davis said: “You’ve got to go in a bit more detail of who you’re coming up against because they can change shape at any time to go into any shape that they want to do and have been working on so we’ve got to adapt better to that. “We just do what we’ve done for the past two years, I wouldn’t say we’ve changed anything on a Friday before the game. We obviously watch a bit more of their clips on a Friday to try and drill it in what we’re going to face. Apart from that I don’t think we’ve changed any of the game prep.” The schedule has meant the Blues are yet to play a midweek league match this season, with the first one not pencilled in until early December. That has meant the squad have had more time at the training ground, with Davis not as grateful for the extra rest between matches as some may think. “I wouldn’t say actually because we have to train harder on a Tuesday and Wednesday now,” the 24-year-old said. “The gaffer loves it when we have the free weeks, to be fair. “I like playing or a Tuesday or a Wednesday because it keeps you ticking over in the rhythm of the games, but Saturday-Saturday I’m not a massive fan. I’ll take the rest but it’s not really much rest because the gaffer’s working us hard. “Even on the Monday, we go outside and do a lot of stuff on the ball. The lads that don’t play still do hard sessions on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. “We get that rest day on a Thursday to focus on set plays and that kind of stuff to get ready for the weekend.” It was pointed out to Davis his running stats that he previously spoke about when he was playing in League One, where the full-back covered around 11km per match. Asked whether those numbers had increased, Davis said: “To be fair I think it’s gone down because you’re sitting in a lot more. It’s hard to say because in the Championship there’s a lot more running but in the Prem you’ve got to be a bit more clever with the running you do. “You can’t just go wandering out pressing your man because the next thing you know the ball could be in the back of your net. It’s just about being clever in the way we have been running because so teams we’ve gone toe-to-toe with and pressed well we’ve done well in games, but the teams where one person has went and no-one’s gone with them has been when we’ve been outplayed and goals can happen. “The high-intensity stuff is higher than it was in the Championship, but the distances have been a bit lower. I don’t know if that’s just me not running as much and it should be higher, but it’s a different ball game.” This season is not the first time that Davis has played in the Premier League, previously making two substitute appearances for former club Leeds United during the 2020/21 season. On those matches and the differences at Town, he responded: “I played two games for Leeds but it was off the bench and with no fans, which was a big part when I played against Liverpool for my first start. “In one of the games I came on against Man United away at centre-half while 6-0 down and I thought ‘what can I do here?’, but it was all about the experience at the same time. “It’s two different teams, Leeds were fit and we went man-for-man and here we’re fit as well but play a better style of football where we can hurt teams a lot more. It’s enjoyable.”
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