Town wideman Wes Burns has hailed fellow countryman and recently-retired Welsh international Gareth Bale as the greatest British player of all time.
Bale, 33, announced earlier this month that he was hanging up his boots with immediate effect and when the tributes started to pour in, many agreed he was the best player ever to play for Wales.
But Burns has taken it a stage further. When asked to paint a picture of the player who was only 16 when handed his senior debut at first club Southampton by ex-Blues boss George Burley in April 2006, Burns said: "Oh, that’s a mad question.
"To be fair, it’s kind of hard to put into words what he’s done, not just for Welsh football, but for Wales in general. He’s put us on the biggest stages in world football in terms of the Euros and the World Cup.
"But it’s not only that, it’s just the way he has sort of paved the pathway for younger boys in Wales to kick on with football.
"Without him we’d probably still be where we were 10 or 15 years ago. Welsh football was a little bit gloom and doom back then.
"What a career he has had — and in my opinion he is the greatest British player of all time, just going on what he has achieved, what he’s won and what he’s done for the sport. Basically, that’s how I would sum him up.”
Burns has worked with Bale at close quarters during Welsh international get-togethers and, when asked what he was like to train with, responded: "To be fair, when we were away with Wales, a lot of the time it was very much a case of ‘Nobody go anywhere near Gaz’ because we didn’t want him to get injured.
"So, he was able to stroll through training and do what he wanted, but when he switched it on it was something for us to take a step back and just take in what he was able to do with a ball. I learned quite a lot from watching him. Even after training he would stay out and do a bit of work on his free-kicks and things like that.
"It always attracted a crowd of the lads, even if it was just him and a goalkeeper working together. The lads were always watching and trying to learn from him. He was a massive role model in terms of a learning curve.”
When asked to nominate Bale’s best-ever goal, Burns added: "I think just about everyone is going to say his best goal was the bicycle kick in the Champions League final for Real Madrid against Liverpool. Not only was it a bicycle kick, it was performed on the biggest club stage of them all and I really don’t think it can get any better than that.”