Taylor made for success

Now I'm willing to admit that at the beginning of this season I was giving Matt Taylor a hard time. The fact is that ever since the Championship season where he played so fantastically well for such a young lad, he never seemed to recover his form again. There were many reasons and rumours about why that was; he was still getting over his injury, or he was still mentally unsettled about his injury coming back, and maybe even perhaps his mind was on a transfer elsewhere so he couldn't concentrate fully on playing for us. Another major problem seemed to be where exactly he would play; in the First Division wingbacks worked wonders and on the left he was the business but if you play like that in the Premiership you get thrashed and he didn't seem to fit in as either a left back or on left midfield.

Now going back to the start of this season, I frequently commented how frustrating it was to watch him play. We all knew what he was capable of, but he just couldn't seem to ever deliver the goods. But the key difference this season is that his defending really seems to have come on in leaps and bounds. Gone are the days where he backs off players until he falls into the moat at the Milton End, gone too are those days where he refuses to tackle until the ball is long gone - he now looks a much more rounded player.

And it's great to see him coming forward and attacking again, just like he used to. I don't know what it is that has suddenly lead to his return to forward motion and being bold enough to take players on again, but it's a huge benefit to the team. Perhaps it's his new role in the formation, maybe it's down to the new coaching system or perhaps he just gets bored at the back, but either way he's brought another dimension down the left in these last few weeks and looked much like the Taylor of old. And what better way to cap it off with a thundering goal last night, which - just like his promotion season strikes against Forest and Leicester - actually came with his right foot.

So take a bow, Matthew Taylor. There's still work to be done, primarily involving no longer walking under ladders since he seems to be guilty of making one mistake every so often that always leads to a goal, but that's the sort of luck that won't last forever. It's great to have him back on top form and now with the other major contender for left back, Unsworth, out of the picture, it's nice to see him rising to the challenge and then a bit more.