brady1993

Plenty - Luke Plange at the back end of last season. Tom Lawrence, at different periods in his Derby career, Lee Buchanan, Martyn Waghorn, Kamil Jozwiak - not to mention Jason Knight and Max Bird both went through a rough patch in the 20/21 season but were still afforded more opportunities than Sibley. 

A lot of L1 football is played on the wings. Having someone such as Knight on the right is very useful to us.
We basically use him as a RM in this system anyway.

I’d have gone Sibley to get us up the pitch a bit better but hopefully Liam knows what he’s doing. 

I think he could do a good job there tbf, he's got the strength and the hold up play and he's a championship player so should handle league 1 no problem. 
Think Collins is more of a goal scorer though and I have him down as scoring today. 

I've always thought it's a smart idea for a couple reasons. 
Wingers tend to be mercurial, very often blowing hot and cold. Sometimes they've got the beating of somebody and sometimes they don't. Also fullback is one of the least likely positions on the pitch for a sub to take place, so by encouraging your wingers to go 100% for 60 mins and then subbing them you can create a mismatch in terms of energy and pace in a place it really matters. 

I've always thought it's a smart idea for a couple reasons. 
Wingers tend to be mercurial, very often blowing hot and cold. Sometimes they've got the beating of somebody and sometimes they don't. Also fullback is one of the least likely positions on the pitch for a sub to take place, so by encouraging your wingers to go 100% for 60 mins and then subbing them you can create a mismatch in terms of energy and pace in a place it really matters. 

I've always thought it's a smart idea for a couple reasons. 
Wingers tend to be mercurial, very often blowing hot and cold. Sometimes they've got the beating of somebody and sometimes they don't. Also fullback is one of the least likely positions on the pitch for a sub to take place, so by encouraging your wingers to go 100% for 60 mins and then subbing them you can create a mismatch in terms of energy and pace in a place it really matters. 

I've always thought it's a smart idea for a couple reasons. 
Wingers tend to be mercurial, very often blowing hot and cold. Sometimes they've got the beating of somebody and sometimes they don't. Also fullback is one of the least likely positions on the pitch for a sub to take place, so by encouraging your wingers to go 100% for 60 mins and then subbing them you can create a mismatch in terms of energy and pace in a place it really matters. 

I've always thought it's a smart idea for a couple reasons. 
Wingers tend to be mercurial, very often blowing hot and cold. Sometimes they've got the beating of somebody and sometimes they don't. Also fullback is one of the least likely positions on the pitch for a sub to take place, so by encouraging your wingers to go 100% for 60 mins and then subbing them you can create a mismatch in terms of energy and pace in a place it really matters. 

I've always thought it's a smart idea for a couple reasons. 
Wingers tend to be mercurial, very often blowing hot and cold. Sometimes they've got the beating of somebody and sometimes they don't. Also fullback is one of the least likely positions on the pitch for a sub to take place, so by encouraging your wingers to go 100% for 60 mins and then subbing them you can create a mismatch in terms of energy and pace in a place it really matters. 

I've always thought it's a smart idea for a couple reasons. 
Wingers tend to be mercurial, very often blowing hot and cold. Sometimes they've got the beating of somebody and sometimes they don't. Also fullback is one of the least likely positions on the pitch for a sub to take place, so by encouraging your wingers to go 100% for 60 mins and then subbing them you can create a mismatch in terms of energy and pace in a place it really matters. 

I've always thought it's a smart idea for a couple reasons. 
Wingers tend to be mercurial, very often blowing hot and cold. Sometimes they've got the beating of somebody and sometimes they don't. Also fullback is one of the least likely positions on the pitch for a sub to take place, so by encouraging your wingers to go 100% for 60 mins and then subbing them you can create a mismatch in terms of energy and pace in a place it really matters. 

He looked pretty ineffective on Saturday because the supply was cut off to him. Notably when the midfield got fixed he started to do alright on the left.  

Very few managers in his career have felt he's better down the middle, so I find it unlikely that his best position is somewhere all of those managers chose not to play him (very often). 
I have no doubt we'd see him there at some point when we're chasing a goal or two, but we'll see him mostly on the wing.

Oxford did somewhat cleverly shift to man mark and make sure they cut down the passing lanes into him. 
To be honest I'm not sure it was so much Bird didn't get a half yard enough on his marker and more that players around him didn't have the confidence to give him the ball. There were a fair few times I noticed where players just didn't back themselves to execute the pass into Bird when it was on but there wasn't huge room for error.
The thing is Bird of all the people in the squad you can pass to him under pressure and be confident we retain it. And that's perhaps what we need to get better at as a team because it isn't always going to be easy passes into wide open space. I suspect that will improve as the season goes. 
The other thing is, when it's happening the two more advanced midfielders need to recognise this more and show for the ball more than they did on Saturday. 

Thing is he was doing that pretty much throughout. Just players around him in the build up need to back themselves a bit more to pass to players under a little pressure.

Thing is he was doing that pretty much throughout. Just players around him in the build up need to back themselves a bit more to pass to players under a little pressure.

It's not just on the ball, it's off the ball. Noticed it last week against Leicester; neither Hourihane or Smith moved around the opposition nearly enough with both pretty static.
And you just can't have that from both of your more advanced midfielders because there ends up no way to progress. It's the same pattern Smith goes off -> mobile midfielder capable of running both off and on the ball goes into the middle and suddenly everything clicks together. 
 

It's not just on the ball, it's off the ball. Noticed it last week against Leicester; neither Hourihane or Smith moved around the opposition nearly enough with both pretty static.
And you just can't have that from both of your more advanced midfielders because there ends up no way to progress. It's the same pattern Smith goes off -> mobile midfielder capable of running both off and on the ball goes into the middle and suddenly everything clicks together. 
 

The other thing that he risks a little is that clubs essentially forget about him. He's not a player with that big a profile and for most of his career his football has been split between league 1 and the bottom end of the championship. The longer this draws out, the longer he hasn't trained and the more likely anyone who would be interested has moved on largely because he's not an irreplaceable target. 
I mean look at someone like Wisdom who is still without a club and he conducted himself far better and had a higher profile.

It's not just on the ball, it's off the ball. Noticed it last week against Leicester; neither Hourihane or Smith moved around the opposition nearly enough with both pretty static.
And you just can't have that from both of your more advanced midfielders because there ends up no way to progress. It's the same pattern Smith goes off -> mobile midfielder capable of running both off and on the ball goes into the middle and suddenly everything clicks together. 
 

Oh I agree completely.
I'm not keen on a Bird, Hourihane, Smith midfield if I'm honest. Neither Smith nor Hourihane were doing enough to get into space, get on the ball and link things up. Smith being particularly culpable combined with often playing the way he was facing a fair bit. 
Knight moves into midfield and suddenly his movement starts to create space and we find it easier to control the game and progress the ball. Well at least until Forsyth and Sibley came on and things got a bit disrupted.

Fingers crossed. He has the ability to really punish them if he has enough freedom and runners finding pockets of space.

Oh I agree completely.
I'm not keen on a Bird, Hourihane, Smith midfield if I'm honest. Neither Smith nor Hourihane were doing enough to get into space, get on the ball and link things up. Smith being particularly culpable combined with often playing the way he was facing a fair bit. 
Knight moves into midfield and suddenly his movement starts to create space and we find it easier to control the game and progress the ball. Well at least until Forsyth and Sibley came on and things got a bit disrupted.

Maybe. The role at Right back he's being asked to do does suit him though and sometimes in getting the best team out there someone plays in an unconventional position.
With that said with that 11 I'd put Smith at RB personally.