Blues boss Kieran McKenna says defender Axel Tuanzebe has made good progress having joined Town at the start of the season.

The 26-year-old signed just after the closure of the summer transfer window having been released by Manchester United at the end of last season.

The centre-half or right-back, who had come close to joining Luton in the summer, joined the Blues still recovering from a back injury.

Tuanzebe, who recently switched his international allegiance to DR Congo, the country of his birth, made his Town debut in the Carabao Cup against Fulham at the start of November and gradually increased his involvement. He has now made 15 starts and three sub appearances, scoring his only goal at AFC Wimbledon in the FA Cup.

“He’s made good progress,” McKenna reflected. “I think over the course of the season really, because he arrived outside of the summer window and there was a period of a couple of months of training that was his end-stage rehabilitation.

“And then he played pretty intermittently pre-Christmas but had some good performances and got stronger by the game, more playing as a right centre-back.

“And then, since the Stoke game on New Year’s Day, he’s been utilised quite frequently in the position that for us you could call a right-back, you could call it sometimes the right of a back three, depending on which phase of the game we’re in.

“And he’s adapted to that really well. It’s not something completely new to him, he did do it early in his career at Aston Villa and played both full-back positions at Man United.

“He’s adapted to that slot really well. It’s enabled us to bring some of his best attributes to the table; his one-v-one defending, his ball carrying from deep positions. It’s brought those qualities to the fore and he’s had an important run in the team and contributed well and it’s good to have that strength and that cover and those options and those different qualities in those defensive areas.”

McKenna says Tuanzebe, who had had a number in injury-hit seasons before his switch to Portman Road, has been pleased to play regularly.

“I’m sure he feels much, much better having played the games,” the Blues boss continued. “I still feel like for a defender he’s relatively young in years - he’s got lots of good years hopefully ahead of him if he can stay medically fit, and we don’t see any reason why not, he’s doing really, really well from that point of view.

“And also in terms of games played, he’s had some massive experiences in his career, but he hasn’t accumulated a huge number of games.

“Defenders, and especially younger defenders, they learn in-game and they learn from experience and he’s had some massive experience but not had too many seasons of accumulating a lot of games.

“He’s playing plenty of games at the moment and he’s learning all the time and I’m sure he’s going to be stronger for it and hopefully this will prove to be a really important stage in his career.”

Photo: Matchday Images

PortmanTerrorist added 16:21 - Apr 9 V honest player, great defensively, but limited going forward compared with (e.g.) Clark. So when things not going his way at the back, he can look poor, and has done a couple of times of late and had to be subbed. Hopefully he feels part of the squad, as should we get promoted, I could imagine McKenna exploring playing with 3 at the back and have to think that would suit Axel much better (on the Right of a 3) than full back where he is often exposed.

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Nomore4 added 18:06 - Apr 9 A big shame it didn’t work out with Brandon Williams. Looked at one point to have made this position his. Also a shame we’ve hung on, when we could have replaced the squad position in January.
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MK1 added 18:23 - Apr 9 I am Happier with in CD. Done a job at RB, but not a natural. Woolfy and Burgess are starters, so a place on the bench for now.
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Doc_Albran added 08:48 - Apr 10 I think he's done a good job of steadying the ship on that right hand side when we had a sticky patch with regular confusion between Clarke and Woolfie - he's a more solid defender, but doesn't quite give us what we need going forward. Clarke clearly has a great relationship with Burns and has also given us some good energy off the bench which has swung games over the last couple of months, so it's worked from that perspective. Not sure what the long term answer is here as ideally you have a hybrid of the two (which probably was Williams), but can see us continuing for the last 5 games with Abel starting and the Clarke impacting in the 2nd half.

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