With eight clean sheets in 14 appearances this season, Aberdeen goalkeeper Jamie Langfield has rightly been receiving plenty of plaudits.
The 33-year-old, now in his ninth season at Pittodrie, will be out of contract at the end of the season. But if he continues his impressive form it will surely be only a matter of time before manager Derek McInnes gives him a new deal to see him into his testimonial year.
Langfield is arguably in the best form of his career, perhaps all the more remarkable given he suffered a brain seizure in May 2011 and spent almost a year out of first-team action.
But he believes the illness and subsequent time out of the game means he cherishes playing more than ever.
He said: “This is the most I’ve enjoyed my football for a long time and I think what happened a couple of years ago put a whole new perspective on things for me.
“I have never enjoyed my football so much. It’s up to the manager to decide whether I get a new contract but I don’t want to leave here.”
Langfield is just four shutouts short of Allan McGregor’s modern-day top-flight record of 95.
Three clean sheets in a row have helped the Dons to victories against Dundee United and Hibernian in the Premiership and Motherwell in last week’s League Cup quarter-final and Langfield will be hoping for another against his former club Partick Thistle tonight.
However, the Dons goalkeeper was quick to praise the men in front of him for keeping the amount of shots he has to save to a minimum.
He said: “It’s going well, but I don’t take any credit. It’s the players in front of me who keep the shots away from me.
“They have been superb, all six defenders who can quite easily come into the side. We work hard on the defence every week and it gives us a good chance to be expansive and we have a great bond with each other. It’s working.
“The confidence we have is bred from not losing goals and getting wins. We saw that in the League Cup-tie at Motherwell last week when we went down to 10 men.
“We got our organisation right and we didn’t concede. We also limited Motherwell from putting in crosses and our three defenders that night were incredible.”
Langfield is hoping to follow in the footsteps of Aberdeen goalkeeping coach Jim Leighton by continuing to play on for a few years yet.
He added: “With Graham Kirk (Aberdeen’s new head of sports science) coming in I’ll probably be able to play until I’m 45 with what he has got us doing.
“I feel fit and healthy and I’d like to carry on as long as I can. I think Jim Leighton made it to 41. I’m not saying I’ll get to that age, but maybe that should be my aim.
“Graham looks after us and he’s very professional. Everything is tailored to our needs. It is a level of professionalism that maybe hasn’t been here and I think we’re benefiting.
“I’ve learned a lot about recovery from the ice baths to wearing recovery tights – things you probably didn’t think you needed. The tights would never have happened in Jim’s day.”