Birmingham head to Aston Villa for the Second City derby, live on Sky Sports Football on Sunday from 11.30am.
Friday 23 November 2018 16:41, UK
Normally there is a reason for a player discovering a rich vein of form. A new role can often trigger it. Or a new training regime.
For Lukas Jutkiewicz, the answer is far more simple.
"It's just that I have been playing really," October's Sky Bet Championship Player of the Month told Sky Sports. "Last season I didn't get a lot of game time under the previous manager and when I did it was generally limited to five minutes off the bench at the end.
"When you don't have a run of games it can be difficult to get match fit, but the new manager put me straight into the team when he came in at the back end of last season and, thankfully, I've stayed in there ever since."
Jutkiewicz, now 29, has only hit double figures in the league in England once in his career. This season he already has nine in 17 appearances, with five of them coming in October and eight in his last eight.
The striker is benefiting from the faith Garry Monk has shown in him since his arrival in March. Overall he has scored 13 times in his last 24 Championship games.
Birmingham are benefiting as well from a brief spell of consistency. After several years scrapping at the bottom, the club seem destined for, at least, mid-table obscurity this season, which would come as a welcome relief after so much recent turmoil.
"I was completely out of favour before," Jutkiewicz continued. "That's football and it's how it goes sometimes, so I was certainly pleased when [Monk] came in. He arrived on the Monday and we had a game on the Tuesday and he put me straight into the side, which was great because I didn't expect it.
"You want stability at a club and no one likes seeing a manager lose their job. That hasn't been the case here over the last couple of years but hopefully now it is.
"We also had so many ins and outs in a short period of time and it is difficult for people to settle into a dressing room that is new to a majority of players. Everyone seems a little bit more settled now, the newer guys are more comfortable around the place and you can see that in the performances."
Monk was Birmingham's fourth permanent appointment since Gary Rowett's dismissal less than two years ago, and he has already taken charge of more games than Gianfranco Zola, Harry Redknapp and Steve Cotterill did.
The club are climbing the table and have moved away from trouble, but there are no glorious aims at the end of the tunnel for Jutkiewicz and the club. It is still all about short-term improvement.
"First and foremost he made us really difficult to play against, and then we went from there," said Jutkiewicz. "The backroom staff do an awful lot of work behind the scenes to then make sure we are in a position to win games.
"They have also worked hard with me behind the scenes, working on potential weaknesses of other teams and areas we may be able to exploit. The training sessions are then planned accordingly to do with how we might be able to hurt them.
"We only look to the next game and trying to pick up as many points as we can as soon as possible. There is no point looking too far ahead because you will end up tripping up."
That sentiment certainly rings true this week, as very few Birmingham fans will be looking beyond Sunday, when they head to Villa Park for the Second City derby, live on Sky Sports Football.
It may just be another three points up for grabs, but Jutkiewicz has lived in the area for long enough to know that it means much more than that, especially when you consider it has been almost eight years since Birmingham last beat their great rivals.
"We know we need to take some of the emotion out of it, but that is a difficult thing to do when it is a game with an atmosphere as hot as it is," said Jutkiewicz. "I have played in a few of them and it is always lively. It is a game you dream of playing in as a young lad. I am really looking forward to it.
"You can always feel it build in the city in the week leading up to it. I live in Solihull, which is predominantly a Blues area, so you get plenty of support and people coming up to you in the street and wishing you the best.
"Obviously it is worth three points to us in the Championship, but we are aware that it is worth so much more to the people within the city and our fans."
