Blues boss Kieran McKenna has reiterated the importance of right-back Janoi Donacien.
The 29-year-old is one of the few players still at the club from the Blues’ last season in the Championship along with Kayden Jackson and Luke Woolfenden having been signed by Paul Hurst ahead of the ill-fated 2018/19 campaign.
Donacien, who won his first international cap with St Lucia in the summer, has started both Town’s league games this season with Harry Clarke having been struggling with an achilles injury.
"He certainly is an important part of the squad and he has had a strong start to the season,” McKenna said.
"Janoi has been a very important player since the day I arrived. Behind the scenes, he is such a well-liked, popular, member of the dressing room. He is an energiser, very personable, very caring as a human and he is a great guy.
"On top of that, he is a good professional. He trains well every day, he’s certainly never let us down on the pitch. He’s developed his game a lot, he’s an excellent one-v-one defender – I think you have seen that in the first two games against two very good wingers.
"I don’t think there are many better one-v-one defenders around, to be honest. He’s someone you can really trust in those situations. He’s an important part of the group, on and off the pitch, and he’s someone we value really highly.”
Is it a tough decision to choose who starts at right-back when Donacien, Clarke and Dominic Ball, who showed he could play the role in pre-season, are all fit? "I think that’s what we want for every position really. We are in a spell where the team in the league has been pretty consistent because we’ve been on such a good run and carried that into this season – and the selections have been really consistent.
"But it doesn’t mean that’s going to be the case all year. We are going to have weeks where we have two games, we are going to have mixed results at times and we are going to need the squad.
"Having players with different profiles and different qualities is something we want to have in each position. In that position, we have two or three players who have played it lately and all bring different qualities to the team and different strengths they can add to the team.
"That’s a great position to be in and then we can choose accordingly who we think is most appropriate for the game and who we think can help the team the most.
"It’s certainly the position we are in on the right side of our defence at the moment and it’s a position we want to be in for every position to be successful as a club.”