With a quarter of the season played, we are still fourth in the Premiership and showing no signs of falling away...

This begs the question: What can we achieve over the next seven months? Of course, Premiership survival has to be our main aim, but I qualified for Europe with Blackburn last season, and I know that Birmingham City are not far away from that side, so there is a chance we can do it as well.

I don't want to get carried away, because football can always kick you in the teeth, but we are moving in the right direction, and the fact that Europe is even being mentioned, shows the enormous potential of this club.

What gives me such confidence about the future is that there are some very ambitious people running Birmingham City, who want to take the club as far as possible. I was really impressed by how proactive they were in the January transfer window last year when they went out and bought four players who all played important roles in helping them stay up.

Our success so far this season has been built on our brilliant defence and goalkeeper, who have kept an amazing eight clean sheets in ten Premiership games. When you know that your defensive players are that good and going to keep out the opposition it can't help but fill the rest of the team with confidence, creating the perfect platform to go forward in search of goals.

We boast two wonderful strikers in Christophe Dugarry and Mikael Forssell, who will always cause problems for opposition defences. Christophe is a world-class player and was a major reason in the club staying up last season, while Mikael is a new boy like me and has shown his value with four goals this season, including the winner on Saturday against Bolton.

The team spirit around the club at the moment is incredible; we all get on so well, and we work our socks off for each other on the pitch. Funnily enough, I don't think we've played as well as we can this season, with possibly the exception of our first half performance against Chelsea and our win at Newcastle back in August. We have done well, but I believe we can get even better.

Playing in this team has helped me rediscover my form. I would say the best period of my career so far was about eighteen months ago, culminating in my England debut against Portugal last September, and I think I'm getting close to that again with Birmingham. I can be more creative here whereas at Blackburn there were more rules and limits on my game.

I love it at St Andrews; only a few days ago I turned to Kenny Cunningham in the dressing room and said, "I am really enjoying my football and life at the moment."

Long may it continue.