Liam Bridcutt

In a perfect world, Bridcutt starts on the bench tomorrow with Jorge Grant or even Max Sanders sitting in front of the back four, protecting them. Tayo Edun didn’t do a bad job against Crewe, but for me, he fluffed his lines in the second period against Ipswich and struggled (as did many) on Saturday. That role, the CDM, four or six (depending on who you speak to) is utterly crucial to our play and so far, only two players have proven they can play there. One is Grant, out for weeks, the other is the captain.

It seems like a choice Michael has already made, but he has to decide to either bring Briductt in without slowly integrating him, or to risk looking as penetrable as we did against Rochdale. It’s a decision he hints at having already made in his pre-match press conference, and frankly, I can’t see a scenario where Liam Bridcutt doesn’t start tomorrow. Remember, we’ve only lost twice in the league with him playing, and one of those games was the 1-0 defeat against Doncaster which we missed two penalties in.