What's To Be Done With Done?

Whither Matty Done?

I heard a phone-in on Talksport the other day which asked fans who was the first player on their teamsheet. It provoked the usual response as Liverpool and Manchester United fans called in from Kent to put forward the likes of Gerrard, Rooney and Ronaldo. However, it got me thinking; whose name would I put on the teamsheet first for Wrexham if I was the boss? One of the names that sprang to mind was Matty Done, but I'm afraid that current circumstances hardly favour the gifted winger.

To be fair, Done's impressive progress does tend to lead people to forget that he's still very young. Brian Carey and Denis Smith before him have wisely opted to nurture him gently, looking to avoid the dangers of over-exposure to the week-in week-out rigours of taking on lower league clogging full backs. However, the current 3-5-2 formation would appear to pose a more serious threat in his hopes of immediate first team involvement.

It's not as if an out-and-out winger like Done is incapable of filling this role. After all, when Denis Smith started playing it he had two very similar players on the flanks in the two Edwardses, Carlos and Paul, and converting to a wing-back hardly hampered Carlos' career did it?

Unlike Smith, though, Carey has already got two players who are well-suited to the role of wing-back in Neil Taylor and Simon Spender, and the side looks balanced with them on either flank. The experiment of playing Michael Carvill in that role illustrated the dangers inherent in playing an attacking player down the flank on his own.

And that's the point. Unlike 4-4-2 there's only one wide position available on the left. Unlike 4-3-3 there isn't the option of popping Done to the left of a front three. So where does he fit in?

Injury or loss of form amongst his rivals for the position hardly look likely to help his cause, as Ryan Valentine and Mike Williams are as natural as Taylor in that role. So where does he go from here? Is he to permanently be a substitute, only to be used when we need to throw him on to chase a game?

A switch up front is a possibility, but when he came on in attack against Lincoln he was clearly finding his feet: we won't get the best out of him there.

So what do we do? We've had problems finding the right place to play Mark Jones if we're going to get the best out of him; let's hope that doesn't happen with the next bright young thing to come off the Collier's Park conveyor belt.