"Whether Nathan Jones would trust him" - Impact of Charlton Athletic, Derby County deal | OneFootball

We asked our Charlton Athletic fan pundit whether they were missing Corey Blackett-Taylor

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

Charlton Athletic were dealt a blow last January when star winger Corey Blackett-Taylor left the club to join Derby County, initially signing for the Rams on loan before making it a permanent deal in the summer.

The winger showed some impressive goalscoring form in his last couple of months at The Valley, and became a hugely important player for the Addicks, making his January exit a tough one to take.

However, a lot has changed in South London since then, with Nathan Jones being appointed manager in February of this year, so we asked our Charlton Athletic fan pundit, Ben Fleming, whether they are missing Blackett-Taylor so far this season.

He believes that while Blackett-Taylor is a quality player for League One level and would improve Charlton's squad, he's unsure whether he'd fit into their current playing style under manager Jones.

Speaking to Football League World, he said: "It’s a tricky one to answer. Would I want to have someone of Blackett-Taylor’s quality in the squad? Of course.

“Especially towards the back end of his time at Charlton, those six months before he went to Derby, he was incredibly threatening and one of our best players, so if you were to have that in the squad, then that’s obviously a massive boost.

“In the same breath, he could blow hot and cold. In our current system, I don’t necessarily know where he’d fit in, and I know at times when we played as a back five we deployed him as a left-wing back, and I don’t know whether Nathan Jones would trust him defensively enough in a back five.

“We tended to prefer wing-backs who were just full-backs to play wing-back quite often and, especially now we’ve moved to a narrow 4-4-2, there’s maybe a chance he could have played the Tyreece Campbell second striker role, but it’s not necessarily his style.

“So, in this current system, I don’t think it would get the best out of him, so I don’t think we miss him as much, but there would be very few teams in League One that Blackett-Taylor wouldn’t be an immediate first-team player, for so in that sense he’s missed, but not as much as other teams would miss him because we’ve moved on and tactically evolved.”

Corey Blackett-Taylor is proving to be a useful option at Derby County

Given the fact that Blackett-Taylor is now playing in the Championship for Derby, it must be hard for some Charlton supporters not to look on with envy.

The 27-year-old actually didn't make much of an impact for the Rams last season, failing to score a single goal and registering just one assist, but he's shown recently in the Championship that he could become an important player for Paul Warne's side.

He's mainly been used from the bench, but he registered an assist in a 3-2 defeat against Norwich in September, and looks like he can make a real impact as a substitute with his pace able to cause tired defenders a problem.

Meanwhile, Charlton are mid-table in League One, and while it's not been a bad start to the season, it doesn't look like they'll be competing for automatic promotion this season.

Whether Blackett-Taylor would have fit into Jones' plans remains to be seen, but there's no doubt that having someone of his quality on the books would have been a big boost to the Addicks.