Town manager Kieran McKenna has praised Joel Coleman, who signed a new six-month deal yesterday, and has spoken about the importance of the third-choice keeper’s role.
Coleman, 27, joined the Blues on a short-term deal in November after Nick Hayes suffered an injury in training, which is set to keep the 23-year-old out of action for most of the rest of the season.
Although he’s yet to make a senior appearance, the former Rochdale man has impressed McKenna and has been rewarded with the new deal. "
Asked the significance of a club's third-choice keeper, the Blues boss said: "Very important. I always think your second and third goalkeepers have important roles in the squad.
"The second keeper, which has been Vas [Vaclav Hladky] is more visible because they’re on the bench and maybe play in some games and everyone understands the role that they have.
"But I think the third goalkeeper is a very important role. Nick Hayes was doing that role ever so well and when we lost Nick to injury we didn’t want to weaken that goalkeeping department because we feel like it’s very strong and we were very happy to be able to get Joel in the building.
"I think that role is one of your main energisers in training, you need to be ready every day, you need to be ready to compete every day, you need to be ready to push, not just the goalkeepers, of course, but also pushing the forwards, pushing the outfielders.
"Being hard to score against, being ready to make a lot of saves, going in goal for finishing practices, having a real physical challenge put against you sometimes, giving energy to the group, giving voice to the group.
"It’s such an important role from a dynamic for your training sessions and Nick was doing really well at it but Joel has come in and and been excellent in terms of his performances in training but also the way that he’s kept the standards high for the whole training group.”