Jukey enjoying a new Lee-se of life at Blues
LUKAS Jutkiewicz admitted he has feared for his Birmingham City career during his spells on the St Andrew’s sidelines.
The 32-year-old scored his 49th and 50th league goals for Blues in Saturday’s 2-0 victory over Stoke – and is once again the focal point of the team.
He has bagged three in five since Lee Bowyer’s arrival and is thriving playing with a strike partner and in a side set up to make sure he has a supply of crosses on which to feed.
Having been reduced to a bit-part role under former head coach Aitor Karanka, the turnaround in Jutkiewicz’s fortunes is marked – and by his own admission reminiscent to when Garry Monk restored him as a key player following Steve Cotterill’s short tenure.
However, during those spells speculation about his future has never been far away, even as recently as January.
“I’ve been through this before so it helps,” Jutkiewicz said. “An almost identical thing happened under the manager before Garry Monk.
“I was left out, seemed to be on my way out of the club and then things turned around and so you have to use those experiences and they stood me in good stead.
“Of course (I was resigned to the fact I might leave), if the manager stays and they don’t want you to play, then that is the likely solution.
“I was able to remain confident I had something to offer this club and hopefully that proved to be the case back in 2017.
“It’s football.
“Everyone has different opinions of what they want their team to look like.
“You have to respect that and try and work hard to change people’s minds and if you can’t do that, that’s when you do move on.
“But you have to remain professional, train hard and be a good team-mate to the boys that are playing and try and change someone’s mind.
“Those are the things you have to go through as a professional footballer. You can’t have all highs throughout your career.
“You have to deal with lows and try and come out the other side. But, fortunately, I’ve been able to come back into the team and help the team out.”
Jutkiewicz insisted his belief in his own abilities did not waver but admitted being out of the side did affect him.
“I’ve been in this game a while now. I know what I have to offer. I know my limitations but I also know what I can provide to a team and how I can help them,’’ he said.
“It affects your daily life when the team is not winning games as well. We take everything home with us, it means everything, it is our livelihood, players care, players care about results, whether it is individual performances or team results.
“I was very fortunate that my situation had some nice things going on with my wife giving birth and things like that and you have to try and stay positive.”
Former Blues midfielder Bowyer has brought belief back to a squad who had lost their way.
“Clarity has been a big thing,” Jutkiewicz continued.
“When we’ve gone through things during the week, there has been a clear gameplan about everything we are going to do, how we are going to exploit teams’ weaknesses, going through some of their strengths and how we are going to be resolute against those.
“Just making sure everyone knows what is expected of them, and everyone goes out there and we are on the same page and it makes a big difference in this league.
“We wanted to make sure we get the job done here first (staying up).
“We need more points and need to produce more performances like (Stoke) and get ourselves over the line before we start thinking about next season.
“But it feels like we have got the right guy in charge to provide a platform to start building this club back up again.
“There are lots of different reasons that have got us to this point but it’s up to us to give ourselves a platform to build on again and hopefully we can look forward to something brighter.
“You don’t want to be scrapping away at the wrong end of the table.
“You dream of being involved in teams that are successful and merely staying up is not success at this football club. It needs more.”