Birmingham City: Chris Davies reveals chat he had with Jay Stansfield before emotional Exeter City return | OneFootball

Stansfield marked an emotional return to St James' Park with a goal for Blues

Birmingham City manager Chris Davies has revealed his pre-game discussion with Jay Stansfield, who marked an emotional return to Exeter City with a goal from the spot on Tuesday night.

Stansfield's personal and career connections with the Grecians have been well-documented for numerous years, with his late father, Adam, forever remembered at St James' Park ever since his passing in 2010.

This led to an emotional night in Devon from the 22-year-old's point of view, with a tifo of his father's number nine shirt displayed pre-match, before the Blues striker rounded off an impressive 2-0 win with an 83rd minute penalty after Tomoki Iwata continued his fine goalscoring form with a low drive after 11 minutes.

Stansfield - who came through the Exeter academy before moving to Fulham, as well as making 39 appearances and scoring nine times on loan for the club in 2022/23 - was praised by Davies for his mindset in the lead-up and throughout the fixture, with the Birmingham boss also revealing part of his pre-game chat with the England U21 international.

“I don't think there's many people in the world that probably know exactly how Jay feels right now or felt on that pitch. So, credit to him, he didn't let it affect him at all in terms of he's very focused, he gave a really diligent performance, showed his quality and scored a goal, he's a goal scorer. I'm sure his family would be very proud of him," Davies told Birmingham Live.

“I didn’t have any worries about him taking it in the moment because I know with Jay he takes everything in his stride really well, to be honest. I spoke to him leading into the game about everything and he was in good mindset and really looking forward to it," he added.

“When that penalty gets given, you can see his eyes light up because he sees there's another goal for him.”

Birmingham City boss saw a marked improvement in Exeter City success

Given the expectancy which surrounds a club of Birmingham's stature in League One after a record-breaking spending spree, which saw divisional and club records broken to acquire the aforementioned Stansfield on a permanent basis, question marks had been raised after recent performances which included a 3-2 defeat to Shrewsbury Town last weekend.

However, after a run of three successive third tier outings without success, Davies praised the mentality of his squad who delivered a strong performance and reaction in one of their games in hand over current league leaders, Wycombe Wanderers.

“I was really, really happy with the performance. I thought it was one of the best performances of the season, obviously we knew we had to react and challenge the players to make sure that there was a reaction from a really disappointing day on the weekend and to a man, every single one of them reacted," he continued.

“I thought we looked like a real proper team out there gave very little away. I think they had two touches inside our box, the whole entire game. We created numerous chances for the possession we did have and we scored two good goals.”

After returning to winning ways, Birmingham face a reunion with former boss Steve Bruce as they travel to Blackpool in the FA Cup