Following stints with Rangers and Cardiff, Chris Burke has firmly established himself as a key member of the Birmingham City starting XI after his arrival in 2011. The Scotland international has made 25 appearances for the Blues this season and has scored or assisted 8 of their 31 goals in the Championship this term, an impressive direct contribution of 25.8%.
Burke has become one of the most consistent wingers in England's second tier and he continues to impress those that watch the Championship on a regular basis.
WhoScored.com were recently granted the opportunity to speak with Burke prior to Birmingham's FA Cup encounter with Swansea City.
How does your time at Birmingham compare to your stints with Rangers and Cardiff in terms of the difference in playing styles of the three?
The manager (Lee Clark) tells you he wants free-flowing, attacking football. He wants people to express themselves. My time at Rangers was a bit more reserved. It was more focused on stopping the opposition playing and then our quality would put us on top in the end just because it would play to our advantages and the standard was good.
At Cardiff, it was pretty much front to back a lot to then support the strikers. It worked well for us when we had Jay Bothroyd and Michael Chopra and then when (Craig) Bellamy came as well. Obviously, this team (Birmingham) has always produced free-flowing, attacking football which is great for the attacking players.
You’ve played under Chris Hughton and Lee Clark during your time at Birmingham. How does their approach to the game differ?
I think every manager’s got their different aspect in what they want to do. Not every manager is the same, that said Chris Hughton is more reserved, more defensive minded and played counter-attacking football, especially when we played in Europe, and that’s what we needed to do. As for Lee Clark, he's more attacking, as I mentioned before.
After 6 years without international recognition, Gordon Strachan recalled you to the national team last January. How do you feel the Scotland team is developing under the new manager?
Very positive. He’s (Gordon Strachan) come in, he’s shaken things up, he’s brought in his own people, his own staff, and he’s tried to put his point across. He’s done that in a very short space of time and got his message down there very quickly, which is quite hard for a manager, especially on a national level.
It sometimes takes a lot of time, especially when you’re only meeting up a week at a time every couple of months, but he’s got everybody knowing what they need to do if they’re ever asked to come on the pitch and obviously the starting XI know what they need to do as well.
We’ve got a very bright future ahead of us for the national team. You can see in the last couple of results, and since he’s been manager, we’ve definitely picked up and moved up the rankings and we’ve got great results against teams like Croatia.
With the increase in statistical data to measure performance, do you consider stats to be a key aspect of the modern game?
I do. I think we use a lot of statistics, you know, percentage rate of passing, possession and crosses into the box, for example, and what way we score goals. I think it’s very crucial, it probably helps to work out the strengths and weaknesses of other teams as well. Obviously, a lot of teams and other sports use it as well, baseball for example. It’s kind of coming into a new era of football and I think it’ll only grow in years to come.
Of every regular right-winger in the Championship this season, your WhoScored.com rating ranks second (7.07). How happy have you been with your performances from an individual perspective?
I’ve been fairly happy, I’ve always set a target for myself at the start of the season. I always say, for a midfielder to contribute, especially if you’re an attacking midfielder, if you’re scoring double figures and getting double figures in assists, then you’re doing your job and if everybody does that, then you’ll be a very successful team.
I’m probably a couple of goals behind what I would like to be scoring. I have 9 assists in all competitions, so I’m quite happy with that. Obviously, I’ll look to strive to do more, but, I think, individually I’ve probably reached the point where I’m comfortable, but I’d like to push on in the goalscoring department.
Your statistically calculated strengths according to WhoScored.com include ‘crossing’ and ‘dribbling’. What do you believe is your greatest asset?
I would probably say crossing. What I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older is that you don’t have to beat a man to put a ball into the box. I’ve been fortunate enough to play with good players that have shown me that you don’t have to beat a man, you just have to get half-a-yard on him. It obviously helps you as well if you can do that, it adds to your game, so I would probably say crossing.
Which is the best side that you’ve faced in the Championship this season, and which team has surprised you the most?
I would say Burnley are a very high-tempoed team in that they did everything right and they knew what to do and where to be and they had the right structure about them. We played them away and they comfortably beat us 3-0 - I was very impressed by them.
Teams that surprised me? It’ll be hard to pick one because every team in the Championship surprises you, that’s why top can beat bottom, bottom can beat top, so I would find it very hard to say what team surprised me.
With 19 games still to play in the league, despite sitting in a disappointing position at present, is there still belief that Birmingham can have a strong finish to the season and challenge for the play-off places?
Yeah, I believe it. I think everybody believes it here. If you don’t believe it then that’s when you start being in trouble and you start having difficulty in trying to push up the league. Everybody here believes that we can win the next game and then win the next game, that’s what is so good about this league. We obviously went on a 10-game unbeaten run and we believe that we can do that again. We got beat, obviously disappointingly, by Yeovil last weekend and that’s something that we have to rectify and a great way to start doing that is to test ourselves against a Premier League side against Swansea on Saturday.
The club would obviously like to see themselves competing at the top end of the table once again, so what improvements do you feel need to be made in order to do that?
Probably just consistency. I think consistency in this league is in short supply. I think if you’re consistent then you’ll get promoted, but it’s hard when you’ve got so many young players coming through. Where the club is at at the moment, they might find that a little bit difficult to do. When young players come in, obviously they’re still learning the game and unfortunately some mistakes are made, but they’ve been doing great and they’ve been progressing very, very well in coming through the ranks, so consistency’s probably our main aspect that we need to improve on.
Who is the best player you’ve played with and against in your career?
I’ve been fortunate enough to play with a lot of good players in my time at Rangers. I had Frank and Ronald De Boer and worked with (Mikel) Arteta. Arteta was a great player to play with. He could find you very, very quickly and at the right time as well and Frank De Boer, I was impressed by his passing ability from the defensive line.
Against, probably Arthur Numan or Ashley Cole. I was fortunate enough to play against him (Cole) in a friendly for Rangers one time. Arthur Numan, obviously I played with him, so training against him was very, very difficult.
How big a role do you think Chris Burke can play for Birmingham between now and the end of the season? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below
