No blues for departing Davies

Birmingham signing Curtis Davies has revealed he was ‘happy to see the back’ of former club Aston Villa after his January transfer move.

Central defender Davies had not made a league appearance for Villa since the 2009/10 season and had spent the earlier part of this term on-loan at Championship club Leicester City.

Davies appeared destined to link up with Leicester again before a swoop on January 28 by Villa’s rivals Birmingham kept the 25-year-old in the English Premier League.

“It’s good – good to be here. They’re a good set of lads and it seems a good club so I’m just ready to get going and try and play Premier League football again,” Davies said.

“I was on my way to Leicester and had got the paperwork done really and Villa called my agent late on in the evening and said Villa hadn’t signed off the papers and said the Blues had put in a permanent deal. I was obviously happy to come across and talk to Blues and happy to get the deal done.”

And there is no love lost between Davies and former club Villa, where he had been frozen out first by manager Martin O’Neill and then his successor Gerard Houllier.

“At the end of the day I hadn’t played a league game for Villa for eighteen months, so maybe if I was a regular in the side and had jumped ship to come to the Blues then that would’ve probably been a different thing,” he said.

“But it was more a case that they were happy to see the back of me and I was happy to see the back of them really. I wasn’t playing for them – I was just sitting there doing nothing and I wanted to go and play.”

Guardiola aims to kick cup habit

Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola wants to improve his side’s poor recent performances in the Copa del Rey by securing a spot in the final on Wednesday.

After scoring a 5-0 rout in the first leg clash with Almeria, Barcelona are a near certainty to progress to the final when they travel to the Estadio de los Juegos Mediterraneos.

Guardiola is keen for a repeat of the 2008/09 season, when his side scored its first cup triumph in 11 years.

“Tomorrow is a good time to reach the Copa del Rey final, which we have only done once in three years,” Guardiola said.

“That is the aim, and the opportunity is there. We are all pushing to get to the final. Few players haven’t been part of this campaign, so tomorrow we will decide who plays.”

“The best way to go through is to go out to win. Not focusing on the result from the first leg and going out to win is the best way to get through.”

“The best form of defence is attack, and the only thing I want us to do is attack. We are going for it, so don’t be surprised if we win comprehensively. That is what we will try to do.”

Despite leading Real Madrid by seven points in La Liga, Guardiola insists he will be taking nothing for granted as the season enters the serious end.

“A manager as prestigious as (Real’s Jose) Mourinho, who is so competitive, won’t give up on anything in January,” Guardiola said.

“He won’t give up on anything until the end. We had a first half of the year with only one loss and one draw.”

“It is a good first half and a good start to the second that we are having. But in order to win we will need another 51 points.”

“There are no guarantees that we are going to do that. In football, what you have done before doesn’t guarantee anything.”

Ranieri relief at Roma run

Roma boss Claudio Ranieri believes his players are finally producing the form they are capable of after an indifferent start to the season.

With just one win from their first six matches and with rumours of player discontent swirling around the club, there was speculation regarding former Chelsea boss Ranieri’s position at Roma.

But with wins from their last four matches, Roma are up into fifth position – although they are still nine points adrift of league-leaders AC Milan ahead of Wednesday’s clash with Brescia.

“I usually make evaluations on what I feel and on what I can see through the players,” Ranieri said.

“Even if we have lost, I’ve found a compact and determined team willing to achieve a positive result, regardless of whether we have got a result or not, since there is no guarantee that you will get a result.”

“But I’ve found the team again and my words have proved to be right and we are now competing for the three cups.”

Ranieri said he will be wary of the threat posed by Brescia, who on Sunday replaced coach Mario Beretta with his predecessor Giuseppe Iachini – the man who guided them to promotion from Serie B last term.

“Tomorrow it is going to be a difficult match. The team has called back the coach who got them in to Serie A. He knows his players very well and knows how to get the best performances out of them,” he said.

“I don’t want difficulties. We all know that there could be a decrease in concentration when playing against smaller teams, but this would be the biggest mistake we could make right now – never relax.”

“The opposing team is battling to stay in Serie A and they will do everything to cause us problems, make us lose focus and hit us on the counterattack like they did in the home match (which Roma lost 2-1 in September).”

Eredivisie: De Graafschap 0 Utrecht 0

Utrecht and De Graafschap sit eighth and 12th respectively in the Eredivisie after grinding out a goalless draw at De Vijverberg on Tuesday.

In a fixture originally scheduled for Saturday but postponed due to a frozen pitch, neither side could gain the ascendancy in a dour struggle.

Utrecht midfielder Michael Silberbauer was sent off on the hour mark, while Yuri Rose and Steve de Ridder were cautioned for the hosts as both sides struggled to carve out clear chances and in the end had to settle for a share of the spoils.

De Graafschap have a limited amount of time to recover before their next assignment – Friday’s match against third-place Ajax at Amsterdam Arena – while Utrecht host the reigning champions Twente on Sunday.