Cardiff v Derby County match day thread init.

[brady1993]

10 hours ago, Ghost of Clough said:

Wasted energy looking at the defensive stats?

He's a good squad player for this division. Nothing more. He'll help grind out results, but he won't typically have an impact in our attacking play.

To be honest I think he hinders it at times or at least the build up play and teams are starting to really clock onto it. It's really noticeable since the turn of the new year that when we set up with a 4231 with Knight at #10 that several teams having essentially deployed a similar trap where they tightly mark the one nominal playmaker and either leave Shinnie and Knight alone at first pretty much and then aggressively press them when they get it as they are more than likely play a very safe ball or give up possession. It essentially strangles the play through the middle and so if they can cope with CKR then we can really struggle to progress up the pitch. 

It's unbalanced and I believe it's why we were starting to look at Bird at #10 before Bielik's injury in order to try and alleviate this by having two players in midfield who are going to find space and look to keep the ball moving. Personally I'm still of the belief that if you really want to play through midfield you can only really play one of Shinnie or Knight and there needs to be two more technically adept players in there.