Lee Bowyer makes honest admission about 24-year-old after Birmingham’s defeat to Nottingham Forest

Birmingham City manager Lee Bowyer has admitted that Nottingham Forest’s on-loan Aston Villa striker Keinan Davis is a “difficult” player to deal with.

Davis enjoyed another productive day in a Forest shirt on Saturday afternoon, opening the scoring as his side claimed a 2-0 win over Bowyer’s side at The City Ground.

That was the 24-year-old’s fifth goal in 14 league games for Forest since joining on a temporary basis from the Blues’ local rivals Villa in the January window.

It was another significant contribution from Davis that helped Forest to a fifth straight win in the Championship, to move Steve Cooper’s side to within six points of Bournemouth in an automatic promotion place.

Now it seems as though Bowyer has been rather impressed by the 24-year-old in recent weeks, and not just from what he saw against his own club.

Giving his verdict on Davis following Forest’s win over the Blues, Bowyer was quoted by The Athletic as saying: “It is difficult to stop somebody like Keinan. I was here to watch Forest on Wednesday and he did the same thing to Coventry; he caused them problems.

“He is a very, very good player. He is quick, he is powerful and he has a bit of everything. He can play, he can run, he can hold the ball up… he is just a very difficult player to play against.”

The Verdict

It does feel rather hard to argue with this assessment of Davis from Bowyer.

The physicality that Davis possesses means he is not an easy player to keep quiet, and there have been plenty of Championship defences that have discovered that this season.

Now, the 24-year-old is combining that with an ability to take his chances, something which is proving crucial to Forest’s push for promotion in the second half of the campaign, which has come