SUCCESS at St Andrew’s is even sweeter this season for Curtis Davies because he feels he is playing among friends, not just team-mates.

The Blues centre-half, who was named the Championship player of the month for January, reckons the current squad are the tightest group of pals he has ever worked with in football.

On the pitch the close-knit bunch have clicked this season and outside of football they have built up lasting relationships, too.

With automatic promotion now clearly in their sights Davies admits such an achievement against all the pre-season odds would be a truly remarkable feat.

“It would be massive,” he said.

“I had an early promotion and league win when I was at Luton and there’s nothing like it.

“With this set of lads, especially all being your friends and team-mates, it would be something special.

“We’re a very tight-knit group. A lot has been made that it’s our togetherness that has helped us on the pitch but you need good players as well.

“Our good players want to work for each other and do it for each other as well, so that’s the extra little bit.

“We’ve always believed in the squad that we can push on towards the play-offs and possibly automatic promotion.

“We haven’t put any pressure on ourselves but we could, in hindsight, look back and say it was a difficult 12 months but we managed to do it.

“But we’ve got a long way to go and we’ve only just got into the top six now and it’s for us to keep going and stay in there or push on even higher.

“Getting yourself promoted from this league is massive.