There was general bemusement at that story a few weeks back about Perry Ng being valued at £3.5 million. I was surprised as well, but looking at his form this season and his contribution in the vital wins we've gained in the last ten days in particular, I'd love to know how much we paid for him because I reckon we may well have got ourselves a real bargain.
For me, Ng now is better suited to playing centreback than he is full back or wing back - his recent performances have been better in the middle than they've been out wide. Last season, he showed his quality as a defender and at passing out from the back, but there was also a tendency to make mistakes which cost us goals - those mistakes haven't completely disappeared, but they've been much less frequent this season.
A question about Ng at centreback which hasn't been answered yet is could he do the job as part of a two (flat back four) as well as in a three? He's always likely to be targeted by sides with taller strikers, but, certainly, in a three, I'd say that's a risk worth taking because of what he can give us when we play that way with wing backs. I'll come onto why serious thought has to be given about whether it is worth contemplating reverting to four defenders soon, but, for me, I think Ng brings us so much as part of a three that we'd have to bring in an improvement on Kipre in the summer to make a move to a flat back four worthwhiile.
If you look at the five goals we scored in the crucial wins over Watford and Rotherham, three of them were reliant on Ng being able to get into a position about forty yards from goal in an inside right channel as he moved forward out of the back three. At Watford, he became the extra man in midfield for the first and third goals as he supplied a good pass through to Rinomhota in the build up for the first goal and clipped in a lovely cross which led to Kaba's spectacular third goal. At Rotherham, Philogene and Romeo (who had a fine game on Thursday and came up with a remarkable headed clearance from a corner when Rotherham looked certain to score) created the space for Ng to put in a beautiful first time cross for Etete to score our first.
I reckon Ng's role as a creator owes much to Sabri Lamouchi and his coaching staff because it's something that has started to happen more in recent weeks. Whatever the reason for it though, making more use of Ng's abilities as a passer and crosser is going some way to giving us some of the creativity from open play that we've, rightly, been accused of lacking through this season.
The embargo we're under is going to make the sort of changes we need to become more than bottom quarter of the Championship strugglers harder to achieve than they might have been otherwise, but one thing we can do is try our hardest to get the likes of Ng, McGuinness and Wintle to sign new contracts with us this summer - in Ng's case, that £3.5 million valuation may not look so far fetched if he was signed up with us for another two or three years.
