Furlong looks to be the LB going forward, Vinagre was expected to be first choice this season, and with a 15m buy out clause unlikely to be taken up, not likely to be here after the season finishes. Vinagre looks good going forward, but a bit suspect defensively, Liam has mentioned this. I think they are looking to improve his defensive qualities. So I think Vinagre will become the regular LB, but may take a game or two more to get him up to speed.
It's bonkers to bring someone in on loan to develop them to the point of being able to start a game, FFS. Of course the likes of Delap are here to develop, but they've pretty much hit the ground running. Unless Vinagre's going to get us 20 assists in the second half of the season what's the point?
He was intended to hit the ground running with his pedigree, which is probably why we were happy enough to take Furlong on to develop. He's been OK in some games but Greaves seems our most solid defensive option there at the moment. I'd go with the same back 4 as Birmingham injuries permitting.
I agree, and why I think Liam is being cautious, loan players need to make a difference, Morton, Delap and to a lesser degree Twine are, and Twine he is improving.
Elder hasn't featured much for Derby, though I think he has been injured of late. The George Cox one puzzled me, he looked a step up from Elder IMO, but we didn't take him on.
Certainly don't think Elder's the answer, but letting your starting left back go with clearly no replacement is just asking for trouble.
Yeah, that one was strange. Looked to be an upgrade on Elder in that appearance at Grimsby. Certainly did nothing wrong. Writing was on the wall for Elder though when Greaves was keeping him out.
Whenever Rosenior opens his mouth it gets twisted and overanalysed. Vinagre was clearly meant to be the main left back this season and unfortunately he's underwhelmed so far. I don't think we'd have let Elder go if we'd known how Vinagre would turn out to date. But it happens, we signed however many players in the summer and the vast majority have been very good. Vinagre is the one disappointment, again so far. It's not a bad success rate really is it. It's only two summers ago we signed Randell Williams, Andy Cannon and George Moncur.
We didn't let him go with no replacement, we signed Vinagre to replace him, he's just not been as good as we'd hoped. With the benefit of hindsight, we'd have been better off signing Cox, but if we were signing players with the benefit of hindsight they'd all be great.
It's also important to remember that we saw George Cox play in a couple of friendlies and nothing more. Trialists always impress in friendlies. We have no idea how good he really is.
Will be interesting to see what the crowd will be in our 25,404 capacity stadium for a sell out. Some clubs have as little as 50 seats lost for segregation in a sell out.
Don’t think it really matters, on the rare occasions we sell out what’s an extra couple of hundred seats?
So in the year since he took over, Liam's played Elder, Fleming, Cox, Vinagre, Coyle and Greaves at left back with the Brighton lad waiting in the wings. As mentioned, there's no point giving Vinagre game time if he's not up to the job so send him back in January and spend the next two months finding someone who is.
