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Bart: I'm 100 Per Cent Staying With Town - Ipswich Town News

Blues keeper Bartosz Bialkowski says he won’t be going anywhere in the final days of the transfer window and has reiterated that he’d be happy to see out the rest of his career at Portman Road.

The summer transfer window closes at 11pm on Thursday with Town boss Mick McCarthy understood to be looking to bring in only another central defender.

Bialkowski says the Blues manager won’t have to add another keeper to his late window list of targets.

"I’m loving life in Ipswich and playing for this club," he said. "I’m happy with my contract and I can promise Ipswich fans I will still be here next game.

"I know in football you never really know what’s round the corner but as far as I’m concerned I want to stay here forever.

"I’m going abroad on Wednesday for a couple of days with my family to enjoy myself. I’m 100 per cent staying with Ipswich.

"I feel happy and sorted here. My family is happy here and I will do everything I can to keep them happy.”

Town fans had braced themselves for close season interest in Bialkowski, the club’s Player of the Year for the last two seasons, with the former Southampton and Notts County man having revealed that the Blues received enquiries from a number of clubs in January, Premier League Burnley among them.

But, despite Wolves being keen earlier in the summer when we understand they were quoted a £5 million fee, Bialkowski, who is contracted to the Blues for another season with the club having an option for a further year, remains a Town player going into the window’s final few days.

The keeper, who has previously stated he'd be open to extending his Blues contract, believes Town can take a lot of pluses from the first month of the season, despite Saturday’s 2-0 home loss to Fulham in his 100th league appearance for the club.

"They showed some quality and deserved to win,” Bialkowski said of the Cottagers who dominated Saturday’s match and might have won more convincingly.

"Fulham are the best team we have played this season. It was the same last season when they beat us twice. But we can take a lot of positives from the month though with the four league wins.

"Fulham have not had a good start but unfortunately for us they turned up here with a hunger and desire to win this game. They played well and took their chances so well done to them.

"The youngsters will learn from their mistakes and will benefit in the future. That said they have been fantastic. Jonas [Knudsen] was great again, as was Jordan [Spence], and even though they were out of position they did a great job really.”

The 30-year-old says he and his team-mates, who are second in the table behind Cardiff, now the only side in the division with a 100 per cent record, would have taken their August points haul had it been offered to them on the opening day, particularly given the illness and injury situation.

"If you had said to me we would have 12 points going into the international break I would have taken it,” he added. "We have built a great platform to go on from, which has to be good.

"It has been a tough month so it will be good to get a rest and recharge, then we have another tough month with six games in a short space of time. We need to rest and make sure we are ready for another crazy month and stay high in the table.

"We have been really unlucky with injuries and illness, I never seen anything like it throughout my career.

"It was bad enough to lose all three centre-halves, then it has been midfielders, all together we have lost 11 first team players.

"At least this break will give us time to get many players back fit. That means we will come back in September, even better, stronger and ready to go again."

Neeskens Kebano, scorer of Fulham’s opening goal, was pleased to score but even more delighted that his now-14th-placed-team claimed their first Championship victory of the season after three draws and a defeat in their previous matches.

"We played really well, we passed a lot, we had the possession, but even better, we scored when we needed to,” he said.

"I’m very happy with my goal, but I’m even happier we got our first win. That was important for all of us; the players, the staff and the fans.

"It was important to get our first win. We have played well enough in games but we didn’t really do what we can do. This time we did."

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