Birmingham City are unbeaten in four games so far this season and were too good for Oxford United today
18:24, 23 Aug 2025Updated 18:33, 23 Aug 2025
Kyogo Furuhashi reacts after missing an opportunity for Birmingham City against Oxford United.
Chris Davies has backed Kyogo Furuhashi hit the goal trail after missing a couple of very good chances against Oxford United.
Birmingham City played well against Gary Rowett’s team, winning courtesy of a Paik Seung-ho first half goal and creating several other promising openings.
However, only one of their 16 shots was on target, with Furuhashi missing when clean through and then sending a free header over the bar after being picked out by Demarai Gray.
The Blues boss was happy with the nature of his team’s display. “It was a pleasing result. It was a really pleasing performance again I’m encouraged by the way we played,” Davies said.
“The game looked exactly as I thought it would do in terms of stylistically, both teams, and I thought we got good control, we obviously dominated the ball again, but I liked us.
“We followed the right kind of process against that set up, how to work the ball, when to play forward, when to play around, and we created good chances, it could have really been more than one-nil.
“But when it’s one-nil, the game’s always open a little bit, but overall performance-wise that was what I was really looking for because you know the results will follow that. I thought it was strong again.
“I think it did follow a similar sort of pattern to many games we had last season and yeah, I mean we’ve got a mixture of players that have been with us, players that are new, we like to think we’ve brought in a bit of quality to help us in breaking teams down and I thought we did create not sort of half chances, some good ones that could have put us out of sight.”
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Blues would have been out of sight had Furuhashi converted one of his openings. After missing several good opportunities against Sheffield United, he has scored once in four starts,
Davies spoke to the 30-year-old at the break: “I said to him at half-time and I’ll maintain I genuinely never worry when they miss chances. I worry when they don’t get them and you can’t think ‘When was the last time he had a chance? He’s a striker, he should be getting chances.’
“It’s when they get them and they miss them, I always think ‘That’ll come because they know how to score goals’.
“They know how much to get on the ball or the technique they they need to use. It’s very instinctive, it’s very natural, especially for someone like Kyogo who scored consistently for a long time. So I really never worry about it.
“I just remind him to continue because that will work sometime soon and that will be a goal, but it’s getting the chances that I’m I’m looking at and he’s getting them.
“He’s playing with belief, I think he’s enjoyed his time a lot since he’s been here, he gives a lot to the team as well if you watch how much he sprints and presses and makes a lot of runs in behind, he occupies defenders by his movement.
“If you leave him one by one, you’re always at risk because he’s very sharp and quick and he makes clever runs, so therefore often it’s 2 against 1, then if it’s 2 against 1, then someone else should be free, so, he does a lot for the team and.
“I’ve got no doubt, and I think he’s also an experienced player, he’s not a young lad on his first club or anything like that. He knows the game and he knows that he just needs to continue and the and the goals will come.”
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