There are certain intangibles in football that I've come to accept will only truly make sense if you've played professionally. One of them is the enormous difference between home and away performances, and another is the effect of being an unknown quantity.
Davies looks as though he could be the latest in a long line of kids who we've seen come into a Premier League team and have an impact, only to eventually level off to a point where they're forced to drop down a division in order to find regular football. I don't know if it's because they fall prey to the meticulous preparation that goes into each game - I imagine it becomes easier to nullify a player as the sample size of footage of him grows - but for whatever reason the opposition seems to have the measure of them after a couple of meetings.
In the beginning he looked both dynamic and remarkably composed for his age, and that was enough to give him the jump on far more experienced players; whereas now, eighteen months later, those same opponents are identifying him as a weak link who can be pressed and harried into conceding possession with relative ease. It's a strange situation, albeit a very common one (Ryan Mason, Jay Spearing, Brendan Galloway, Tom Carroll, Steven Caulker, Tom Cleverley and Phillipe Senderos are all examples that come to mind).
It's also worth noting that his performances really nosedived when he started pinning his hair up like a dinner lady.
