Jewell happy to be proved wrong as Addison's value is on the rise
Paul Jewell appears to be different. In fact, the smile on his face last Saturday teatime suggested that he is actually enjoying being proved wrong and having to dine on his own words.
"Yes, it's true," said Jewell as he basked cheerfully in the warm afterglow of Derby's biggest league win in almost a year under his management. "I didn't really fancy the lad when I first got here. He's a shy, quiet type and I didn't think he looked anything special."
Since the lad in question is Miles Addison and a growing number of Premier League scouts are coming round to the idea that he may turn out to be very special indeed, that is quite some confession but Jewell is unabashed about owning up to his first impressions.
"Miles was like a lot of the young lads here," he explained. "The atmosphere around the place had got to them and everybody was a bit flat.
"He was bogged down playing centre-half in a reserve side that couldn't win a game and I have to put my hands up and admit that it was quite a while before his appetite for work made him stand out."
Jewell kept seeing Addison still there grafting at the training ground at five o'clock and when he arranged a practice game to have a look at him in midfield, the chance was seized with both hands, a first team place was promptly forthcoming and Derby's season rapidly turned around.
"He's been our man of the match in virtually every game he's played," admits a beaming Jewell.
The fact that Addison's emergence as a powerful midfield force has drawn a discreet veil over Robbie Savage's failure to contribute adequately for a transfer fee of £1.5m is certainly one good reason for Jewell to derive such obvious enjoyment from being proved wrong.
Seeing the 19-year-old Londoner sticking the ball in for Derby's second goal in an emphatic 3-0 win over Sheffield Wednesday provided him with another because Jewell had been winding the youngster up by telling him that he couldn't shoot to save his life.
"The gaffer and the coaches had been giving me stick about my shooting," revealed Addison, "and after having two perfectly good goals disallowed against Forest, I was starting to get a bit frustrated myself.
"I thought Rob Hulse was going to get a touch as my shot went across the keeper and I'd have done something illegal if he'd taken that goal away from me."
Addison is big enough to make crossing him a painful experience without resorting to illegal means and if he can continue to contribute to the goals-for column on a reasonably regular basis, his value will continue to grow and, inevitably, his reputation will continue to attract attention from Premier League clubs.
A friend of mine who scouts for one of them has already been dispatched to Derby's games three times recently with a specific brief to check on Addison and he told me last weekend: "The word's out on the kid and I'll be very surprised if somebody doesn't have a go for him in January or, perhaps more likely, next summer."
Reports that Stoke City have already attempted to set up a £2m deal for Addision have been dismissed at both ends but it is the fate of those Championship clubs who produce an exceptional talent to serve as prey to a Premier League glutted with television money.
Barnsley were inundated with requests for tickets from top flight clubs when I was at Oakwell a couple of weeks ago and you did not have to watch their game against Sheffield United for long to work out why.
United have come up with a 19-year-old right-back called Kyle Naughton, who looks very tasty indeed, and their manager Kevin Blackwell conceded: "It's not going to be long before somebody tests the water with a bid because all the top clubs are on the case.
Fortunately, we are one of the few clubs secure enough financially to be able to keep our best players."
Quite how secure Derby are is hard to say as the credit crunch makes new investment even harder to find and one of the biggest wage bills in the Championship continues to hoover up revenues but it would surely take a lot more than £2m to tempt them to part with a player who has made such a startling impact on the club's fortunes.
I would certainly expect him to do better for himself than a move to Stoke, a place whose name alone is sufficient to deaden the spirits and whose endless rows of Coronation Street terraces and expanses of industrial blight make a visit to the Potteries a reliable antidote to cheerfulness and optimism.
Derby, alas, do not have a choice but to venture into the wasteland, having been drawn away to Tony Pulis's robust, direct and muscular Premier League newcomers in the quarter-finals of what I still prefer to call the League Cup.
At least Jewell will not have to send out scouts to check on Stoke's tactics: just pop out to the nearest Army Stores for a dozen tin hats and call in at Boots for some bruise ointment.
Pulis knows that Stoke cannot compete at Premier League level in terms of skill and creativity but he knows too that some of the sides who tower over his own in those departments can be beaten if they are jolted from their elegant stride and made to take part in an aerial contest against a side well equipped with powerfully-built giants.
It is not pretty, it is not designed to provide sophisticated footballing entertainment and it is not infrequently the cause of complaint from managers whose tender young thoroughbreds have been found wanting for strength and courage.
But it is, or can be, very effective, as Derby discovered to their cost in losing home and away to Stoke the season before last and the Rams, not always comfortable under physical pressure, will have to be at their most resilient at the Britannia Stadium on Tuesday, December 2.
Mind you, since Paul Jewell realised that the centre-half he didn't fancy was really a natural midfield gladiator, Derby have had a great big strapping lad who could put even the most hulking opponents on the seat of their pants.
Comment on this story