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Time to tie Tomasz down

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Birmingham City have been renowned for their array of goalkeeping talent over the past few years with the likes of Joe Hart, Ben Foster and Jack Butland all impressing in the Premier League and at international level.

At present, we have an experienced Pole in between our sticks and, even at the age of 34, he is still proving to be one of our most crucial players.

Since Tomasz Kuszczak joined Blues in the summer of 2015, he has kept 19 clean sheets in 58 Championship games for the club which is around one in every three games.

He brought his vast experience to Blues after picking up Premier League and Champions League medals with Manchester United but he did also bring with him a reputation of being slightly error-prone.

I could see this in his first few games for Blues as he looked shaky when coming for crosses and his handling of the ball wasn’t always comfortable.

He did, however, save a last minute penalty on his debut for Blues which would’ve no doubt been a huge boost for his confidence.

The thing that does stand out with him is his shot stopping ability. For me, Kuszczak is one of the best shot stoppers in the league and some of the saves he has made recently have kept us in games.

Yes, a goalkeepers job is to do this but Kuszczak has produced some unbelievable saves and, when the team are struggling, he comes up with the goods to prevent matters from getting worse.

Game by game I have watched him become even more vital to us and each week he is looking more solid and as fit as ever.

He also looks confident, comfortable and more assured which is only a positive to Blues. His kicking could be a bit better but I’ll let him off with that one.

It seems that Kuszczak is getting better with age and, with his current contract coming to an end this June, it is time for Blues to reward him with a new contract.

We would certainly struggle to find anyone as consistent as him and I really do believe that we have a real gem on our hands, even if his in his middle to latter stage of his career.

He deserves to be rewarded for all of his hard and impressive work at Blues and his performances are certainly ones that others can look up to and try to replicate.

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