The striker put in arguably his most promising performance in a Derby County shirt against Barnsley by virtue of a new position.
When you pay £8.5 million, a club record fee, for a talented centre forward who has previously been crowned the Championship’s Player of the Year, it’s probably a good idea to use him in his favoured position, as the Derby Telegraph reports.
Yet, Saturday’s 2-1 win against Barnsley was perhaps the first time in Derby County colours that Matej Vydra looked comfortable. The Czech striker netted 36 league goals in 83 appearances during two spells at Watford but arrived at the iPro on the back of a forgettable season at Reading.
And, with just two goals in his first 16 games in the East Midlands, it appeared that then-Derby boss Nigel Pearson had signed a player ill-suited to his 4-4-2 or, indeed, the 4-3-3 put in place by McClaren after his October return.
Yet, after starting the 24-year-old on the left against Barnsley, the signs are that Vydra can finally rediscover the form that made him one of the league’s most formidable attackers in his new surroundings.
“Matej is not a lone striker, he plays in a two,” McClaren told the Derby Telegraph.
“We have had to play him there [as a lone striker] because we have only had Darren Bent as Nick Blackman has been injured. So Matej has been thrust in that position.
“He came to us a few weeks ago and said: ‘Look, lone striker is not my position, might be the second one [striker] or try me on the left-hand side. I can do a job’.”
There’s only so much credit McClaren can take of course. After all, it appears that his tactics were not borne from his own inspiration but from the striker’s request. He has stumbled across an answer rather than worked one out.
Though if Vydra starts to justify that monstrous transfer fee, the Derby boss will give us a flash of that trademark grin.
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