Latest Birmingham City news from BirminghamLive includes Jay Stansfield on his position and target after joining Blues
Jay Stansfield hopes his debut stunner will be the first of many goals for Birmingham City during his loan spell at St Andrew’s.
The forward became Blues’ tenth signing of the summer last week and marked his debut with a 95th minute winner against Plymouth Argyle on Saturday. Blues beat off competition from a dozen Championship clubs to land Stansfield on loan from Fulham.
Stansfield has stepped up to the Championship after a superb loan spell at Exeter City last season which saw him score nine times and assist a further seven in 36 League One outings. Stansfield averaged a goal contribution every 157 minutes in League One. Those were credible numbers in Stansfield’s first full season as a professional, but they didn’t satisfy everyone.
“I got a bit of criticism with my numbers in front of goal last season,” said Stansfield. “This year I want to come here and show everyone how many goals I can score.
“I want to get as many goals and assists as possible, then try to beat last year’s total. These days people look at stats – I think it matters more than if you make a good tackle or if you perform well so I’m going to try to get my numbers as high as possible and hopefully help this team to big things.”
John Eustace believes Stansfield can be utilised in all four attacking positions in Blues’ 4-2-3-1 formation. Stansfield was deployed behind the striker on his debut and started in the same position in Blues’ Carabao Cup defeat to Cardiff City on Tuesday.
“I’d say number 10 is my strongest position,” said the 20-year-old. “I mainly played there last season.
“I made my Premier League debut as a left winger. But I played right winger and as a number nine throughout my youth career so I’m comfortable playing anywhere across the front four, but I think I can impact the games more as a number 10.”