bbc.co.uk

Stansfield enjoying altered role at high-flying Blues

**Birmingham City record signing Jay Stansfield may have only scored two goals so far this season - but the way Blues are playing, coupled with his own form, has him hoping that there are still plenty more to come.**

After his 12 Championship goals failed to prevent Blues being relegated in 2023-24, Stansfield then increased that number to 19 in League One to help win promotion when his loan signing from Fulham had been turned into a £15m move .

He added 10 more in the Championship last season to help Blues finish 10th - and is now within one goal of becoming only the third Birmingham City player to reach 50 goals for the club in the past 40 seasons - to follow Paul Furlong (56) and Stansfield's former team-mate Lukas Jutkiewicz (69) in that respect.

But he is now doing it in a very different role to when he first arrived at the club - and is very much enjoying playing as a foil to targetman August Priske, especially when, even without [January signing Priske](/sport/football/articles/c1je9p86y3go) on the park, Max Bird set him up to score Blues' third goal in their early match-winning blitz [at home to Millwall on Tuesday.](/sport/football/live/cm4g10v8epx8t)

That was Birmingham's fifth win in six games since the three-week international break - and they now head into Saturday's home test against Swansea City having overtaken the early Championship leaders as third plays fifth, with both teams on the same points.

"We used the break to come together and work on a lot of things," Stansfield told BBC Radio WM.

"And you can see the improvement of the whole team in general. The starters and the bench players."

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