Matej has to take up the baton

TERRY Venables, no stranger to a superstar, was once asked to extol the virtues of Teddy Sheringham. “Ted is one of the best players I’ve ever worked with,” said the 74-yearold, who managed the striker for Spurs and England. “His movement, the way he reads a game. You won’t find a striker out there who wasn’t happy to play alongside him.

“Just look at Jurgen Klinsmann. He had a fabulously successful career across Europe and for Germany. But, of the many players he partnered, he always said Teddy was the best.”

Klinsmann wasn’t the only one. Alan Shearer once said he didn’t even need to train with his erstwhile England team-mate. Sheringham just knew, instinctively, where he would run, which ball he would want.

Some players seemingly exist to make others look good. They are the spin doctors, the kingmakers, the power behind the throne.

Scathing

Emile Heskey, for all his limitations, was another whose strike partners invariably thrived. In the Championship, Grant Holt mastered the art.

Nowadays, that man is Troy Deeney or, as the Watford striker is known after last week’s scathing assessment of Arsenal’s softies, The Equaliser.

For living proof of the 29-yearold’s influence, look no further than Matej Vydra, now at Derby after an £8m switch from Watford.

Of the 222 games the Czech has played since starting out at Banik Ostrava in 2010, 41 per cent came alongside Deeney at Vicarage Road. Those same games were responsible for more than 60 per cent of his career goals.

To put it another way, Vydra has scored only 25 times without Deeney playing Goose to his Mav- erick. Indeed, when Vydra won the Championship player of the year award in 2013, many felt his peers chose the wrong man. Nothing that has transpired since – three Premier League strikes for West Brom and last season’s mediocre spell at Reading – has changed that perception.

Yes, there are mitigating factors. Vydra was lightly run at the Hawthorns, while Reading’s pedestrian, ball-hogging style under Jaap Stam was ill-suited to a last-shoulder poacher.

At Watford, his chances were hindered by myriad signings and the form of Odion Ighalo, yet another beneficiary of Deeney’s patronage.

Nevertheless, it is hard to argue that Vydra has underachieved. He has rapier pace. Thunder in his boots. A Jermain Defoe-esque knack of snapping a shot off before the keeper is set.

Last week’s goal and assist for Derby against Nottingham Forest illustrated all of those qualities – and prompted a challenge from Gary Rowett.

“Matej has the ability to be the best No.10 in the Championship,” said the Rams boss, leaving the obvious ‘So prove it’ hanging in the air.

For Rowett, Vydra is a conundrum. It is no coincidence his best performance of the season came alongside a bona fide strike partner in David Nugent. Clearly, Vydra prefers working in a pair.

But the former Birmingham boss won’t use that system every game. The onus is on Vydra to mould his obvious talents around the team, not vice versa.

Klinsmann and Shearer coped perfectly well without Sheringham. At 25, it is time for Vydra to show he can do the same.