Sunderland midfielder Jobe Bellingham names Birmingham City legend as his EFL GOAT | OneFootball

Ex-Blues midfielder Bellingham has revealed a St. Andrew's icon as his best ever EFL player

Jobe Bellingham was one of the star turns at last week's annual EFL Awards, winning the award for EFL Championship Young Player of the Season and earning himself a place in the EFL Championship Team of the Season.

But when asked prior to the awards who his EFL 'GOAT' was, his Birmingham City roots showed through with the namedrop of a Blues icon, who will bow out of professional football on Saturday afternoon.

Jobe Bellingham name-drops Birmingham City's Lukas Jutkiewicz as his EFL 'GOAT'

That Bellingham should have reached back to the very start of his career to identify his GOAT shouldn't be a huge surprise.

After all, having been born in nearby Stourbridge he is a local lad and players are often fans too. And when asked, the player that he identified was the Birmingham striker Lukas Jutkiewicz.

There are plenty ofBirmingham Cityclub legends, but mention of Jutkiewicz may be slightly bittersweet for Blues fans at the moment, as the striker has just announced his retirement at 36 years of age after nine years at St. Andrew's.

He started his career in the youth systems at Southampton and Swindon Town and his career before going to Birmingham was spotty, playing for nine different clubs - five of which were on loan - before being sent to St. Andrew's by his then-parent club Burnley in August 2016. Four months later he made the move permanent, and he's been there ever since.

329 EFL appearances and 64 goals later, this season marks a fitting time for him to confirm his retirement. The League One title is the first piece of team silverware of his entire career, although this came with him having been used more as a squad player, with just 15 appearances for Blues throughout the 2024/25 season.

Jobe Bellingham's Lukas Jutkiewicz claim shows just how much impact he's had on Birmingham City

The numbers above may look somewhat meagre, but context is important here.

The Birmingham City team that Jutkiewicz was part of for the most part was not very good, and the club was at that time a mess.

The first eight of his nine seasons at the club were spent in the Championship, and throughout that time the Blues never finished higher than 17th in the table.

Indeed, they only even managed to scale those heights twice over those eight years, and in 2019, they were deducted nine points for EFL profitability and sustainability rule breaches.

But what makes someone a 'legend' is about more than that. The relationship between football clubs and players has never felt more transient, and players who arrive and stay are a rarer commodity than ever. Jutkiewicz himself was a journeyman himself before pitching up at St Andrews, but sometimes a player and a club just 'fit', and that seems to have been the case here.

It's striking that Jobe Bellingham should have picked Jutkiewicz above all others.

He might have moved to Sunderland at an early age, but the memory of the players who showed the way when you were a callow youth can have a lasting impact. In naming Lukas Jutkiewicz as his EFL GOAT, he spoke volumes about both himself and the player concerned.

And there is something timely about both this comment and the timing of the announcement of Lukas Jutkiewicz's retirement. Jutkiewicz was with Birmingham throughout one of the darkest periods in their history, but he stayed. And it's entirely fitting that a player who gave so much to the club should have ended his career on the high of the first and last league title.