Max Bird

[CaptainOakley]

Afternoon All

Just intrigued by the opinion of others on Max Bird’s drop in form, at the back end of last season he looked excellent - never gave the ball away, moved it sensibly, set pieces were of a good standard and quickly and broke up play with ease, I really was dreaming of the prospect of him & Bielik together, however this season he has been been pretty poor by those standards set last season and can’t really manage any of them. 
 

Is it the lack of Rooney next to him, perhaps his age who knows?

I know it seems to go against a lot of Derby fans thoughts, but I really hope he gets back in to some kind of form (difficult to play now of course with Bielik & Shinnie) because at the end of the day he’s a young lad who really looked promising. 
 

CO

 

[Spanish]

1 minute ago, CaptainOakley said:

Afternoon All

Just intrigued by the opinion of others on Max Bird’s drop in form, at the back end of last season he looked excellent - never gave the ball away, moved it sensibly, set pieces were of a good standard and quickly and broke up play with ease, I really was dreaming of the prospect of him & Bielik together, however this season he has been been pretty poor by those standards set last season and can’t really manage any of them. 
 

Is it the lack of Rooney next to him, perhaps his age who knows?

I know it seems to go against a lot of Derby fans thoughts, but I really hope he gets back in to some kind of form (difficult to play now of course with Bielik & Shinnie) because at the end of the day he’s a young lad who really looked promising. 
 

CO

 

some will make the step up (Knight) others will find their level earlier than expected/hoped.  Too early to say as given his age this may be just a plateau before he improves again

[CaptainOakley]

Just now, Spanish said:

some will make the step up (Knight) others will find their level earlier than expected/hoped.  Too early to say as given his age this may be just a plateau before he improves again

I hope so, I can’t believe for a second that he’s turned bad overnight given how well he started. 
 

Always knew Knight would be fine in the championship, wasn’t convinced initally by Bird and then bang he just took off (no pun intended) I hope you’re right though and he gets back to it, I’m not liking the constant negativity towards him at present. 

[Jourdan]

Bird found his role in the side in the absence of Bielik.

Unfortunately for Max, Bielik is back and his progression after his injury has been far beyond what anyone reasonably anticipated.

I don’t think anyone would have foreseen Bielik returning and coping as well as he has done with regular football after such a serious injury.

Max just needs to stay patient. He’ll get chances again. But he is hindered by the fact that Rooney prefers the combination of Bielik, Shinnie and Knight above all else right now.

Sibley is in exactly the same boat. His progression has stalled somewhat too, but that’s because the manager has different ideas on what he wants from his midfielders and Shinnie and Knight at the moment take preference.

Personally I would love to see Bird/Bielik, Knight and Sibley as the midfield three one day but I think Rooney is trying to be as pragmatic as he can be. Time will tell if he is vindicated.

[Rammy03]

14 minutes ago, CaptainOakley said:

Always knew Knight would be fine in the championship, wasn’t convinced initally by Bird and then bang he just took off (no pun intended) I hope you’re right though and he gets back to it, I’m not liking the constant negativity towards him at present. 

I've never seen him as a defensive midfielder who is great off the ball. He's a good player when we looks up and spots a forward pass. Too often this season he's played safe, just passing sideways and backwards. You can't have passengers. Unfortunately he has been one of them.

[CaptainOakley]

3 minutes ago, wollatonram said:

Another in the long list of players not good enough yet.

loan him out

Definitely not this season, but certainly was last season he’s like a different player. 

[CaptainOakley]

1 minute ago, Rammy03 said:

I've never seen him as a defensive midfielder who is great off the ball. He's a good player when we looks up and spots a forward pass. Too often this season he's played safe, just passing sideways and backwards. You can't have passengers. Unfortunately he has been one of them.

Agree with this too, maybe caused by the fact that rightly so (with Bielik & Shinnie) he is only getting a small amount of game time towards the end of games when we are looking to hold on, thus him playing a completely different way. 

[Kinder]

5 minutes ago, wollatonram said:

Another in the long list of players not good enough yet.

loan him out

We haven’t got a big enough squad to loan him out. One or two injuries in midfield and he’ll be starting every game.

[Millenniumram]

I don’t think he’s been that bad to be fair. Just a bit “average”, which is a drop off from the consistently good performances he was putting in during the second half of last season. I think part of that is down to the fact we’re not playing well enough as a team to see the best of him as an individual.

Unfortunately for Bird, Bielik and Shinnie have been two of our strongest performers in recent weeks, so he’s unlikely to get much game time anytime soon. Still don’t have a bad word to say about him though. He’s an amazingly talented footballer when in possession of the ball.

[Steve How Hard?]

Whilst the re-emergence of Bielik is hindering his path into the team, I also believe there is another reason too. He did look at his best when we had a purple patch under Cocu. Once that purple patch ended he became a victim of the drop off in form and not the primary cause.

 When a team is performing well every player wants to get on the ball and that gives the man with the ball many options with which to use the ball. Once we hit a bad patch, suddenly players sub consciously begin to hide thus limiting the options for the man with the ball. 

I think this is where MB has become the victim of our lack of form. It seems like he's been playing it safe but in reality he has had limited options when on the ball so he's had little choice but to play the safe ball. It has sort of become a little ingrained into his play now. We know he is capable of more than he's presently showing. He just needs to start believing it again himself.

[sage]

More teams are pressing now and he has struggled with that. 

[Derbados]

He seems to have a habit of good spells followed by a significant drop in form. 

I think the majority of his issues are psychological, not general ability. On his day he’s a superb player to watch. 
 

He needs to believe in himself more and step up consistently otherwise the game will pass him by and he’ll find himself heading further down the football pyramid. 

 

[Sparkle]

I haven’t seen a drop in form - what do see is a player that is very useful If you are winning but not so helpful if you need to score a goal or two 

[cannable]

I thought he was overrated last season, to be honest.

People too hung up on Rooney’s comments about him. 

[RamNut]

He was excellent when he first got in the side.
He teamed up with rooney in the way Johansen and Cairney used to do for Fulham. Staying close and probing forward together. But whether they were assessed on pass completion, or whether it was cocu-ball that affected him, he started playing a meaningless possession game with safe passes to the full backs and the centre halves. He slowed us down, and made us ineffective.

Post-lockdown he began to draw comparisons with Jacob butterfield. I remarked upon it at the time. I started to refer to it as his Don Masson impression. Don Masson would pick up the ball off the centre backs and then play meaningless short passes - mainly one-twos - that went nowhere, stalled our attack and we plummeted down the league. The same was happening with bird. It’s an easy cop out. A risk averse way of playing which achieves absolutely nothing.

ironically most folk seemed to think he was great and he even picked up the captaincy at one point. I think this only reinforced in his mind that he was doing the right things.

He was taking corners and he began to mis-hit the dead ball, either scuffing it to the near post or smacking it 20 foot over everyone’s heads. Sliced volleys were flying into row z. I hate to be critical of him because I had high hopes that bird, sibley and knight was our future. He went under the radar because he was one of young stars, but if it was butterfield, Johnson, Holmes or evans skying it and scuffing it, there would have been an almighty hue and cry. 

i think he needs to decide what kind of midfield player he wants to be. If he wants to be a deep lying holding midfielder then he will have to play second, or third fiddle to Bielik, shinnie etc. And he will need to turn around and face the opposition goal. He will never be a great tackler but maybe he could model his game on John McGovern? If wants to compete for one of the more attacking midfield roles then he needs to rediscover his creative game and morph into Hendrick, adding goals to his game.

I can’t imagine that the opposition brick it when they see him coming on as sub. He reminds me of Ramage. A much hyped young player who just played short passes. It wasn’t enough for Ramage to build a career with us, and it won’t be enough for Bird unless we get relegated and the better players are sold. 

 

[RIMBAUD]

9 minutes ago, RamNut said:

He was excellent when he first got in the side.
He teamed up with rooney in the way Johansen and Cairney used to do for Fulham. Staying close and probing forward together. But whether they were assessed on pass completion, or whether it was cocu-ball that affected him, he started playing a meaningless possession game with safe passes to the full backs and the centre halves. He slowed us down, and made us ineffective.

Post-lockdown he began to draw comparisons with Jacob butterfield. I remarked upon it at the time. I started to refer to it as his Don Masson impression. Don Masson would pick up the ball off the centre backs and then play meaningless short passes - mainly one-twos - that went nowhere, stalled our attack and we plummeted down the league. The same was happening with bird. It’s an easy cop out. A risk averse way of playing which achieves absolutely nothing.

ironically most folk seemed to think he was great and he even picked up the captaincy at one point. I think this only reinforced in his mind that he was doing the right things.

He was taking corners and he began to mis-hit the dead ball, either scuffing it to the near post or smacking it 20 foot over everyone’s heads. Sliced volleys were flying into row z. I hate to be critical of him because I had high hopes that bird, sibley and knight was our future. He went under the radar because he was one of young stars, but if it was butterfield, Johnson, Holmes or evans skying it and scuffing it, there would have been an almighty hue and cry. 

i think he needs to decide what kind of midfield player he wants to be. If he wants to be a deep lying holding midfielder then he will have to play second, or third fiddle to Bielik, shinnie etc. And he will need to turn around and face the opposition goal. He will never be a great tackler but maybe he could model his game on John McGovern? If wants to compete for one of the more attacking midfield roles then he needs to rediscover his creative game and morph into Hendrick, adding goals to his game.

I can’t imagine that the opposition brick it when they see him coming on as sub. He reminds me of Ramage. A much hyped young player who just played short passes. It wasn’t enough for Ramage to build a career with us, and it won’t be enough for Bird unless we get relegated and the better players are sold. 

 

Good post. Seems to me that his instinct is to play safe and this is to the detriment of his game and his ability to contribute to a team that is trying to play in a much more dynamic fashion.

[RadioactiveWaste]

I'm sure he'll come good with time, he's a silky passer of the ball.

For now, the more robust midfield I'm happy to keep whilst the team is clawing it's way back towards "average".

[Comrade 86]

Max is a very good footballer but he's still young and younger players are probably more prone to dips in form than their older counterparts. Sibbo is pretty up and down too. It's only really Jason Knight of the young'uns who seems bulletproof. Max will be back in time, he's too talented not to be. I suspect it's little more than a confidence thing with him in any case. We're very lucky to have these lads at the club. 

[Rammy03]

57 minutes ago, RamNut said:

i think he needs to decide what kind of midfield player he wants to be. If he wants to be a deep lying holding midfielder then he will have to play second, or third fiddle to Bielik, shinnie etc.

I think it's also worth mentioning that Bielik and shinnie are a goal threat. Knight is also a goalscoring midfielder. Bird has never looked like scoring for Derby.

[Ramarena]

He has the talent as we’ve seen, I think it’s possibly a mix of Beilik ticks  more boxes, second season struggles and confidence.

I also think our move to a more pressing game doesn’t work for him. In many ways he’s more of a Prem style player. Champs a very tough division for some youngsters to thrive in. Knight has all the attributes to be a top champ player (already is), so does Sibbo he’s just developing at a slower rate.