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Fortune and luck play a big part in football, and being farmed out on loan has been a blessing in disguise for the next entrant on our countdown of the 'Top 72' players in the EFL this season.
Before we introduce our latest top performer, we'd like to quickly point out that 'Playmaker's 72' is not necessarily aimed at ID'ing the best footballers across the EFL - instead, it focuses on those who have enjoyed the best campaigns across the Championship, League One and League Two this season.
Almost certainly the best bit of loan deal business conducted anywhere across the top four tiers this season, at Number 13 we have flying wing-back Djed Spence.
One of the stranger recent stories from across 'The 92' is that of the full-back who was voted into the Championship Team of the Season for 2021/22, despite being deemed surplus to requirements by his club at the start of the campaign.
Step forward, Djed Spence - the young Middlesbrough defender who has shone so brightly on loan at Nottingham Forest that he is currently being linked with just about every 'elite' club under the sun.
Given that the 21-year-old is being courted by the likes of Bayern Munich, Man City, Man Utd, Borussia Dortmund and Arsenal, we really need to kick off this profile by addressing the elephant-sized question in the room: why was Spence loaned to Forest by Boro last summer?
EFL Team of The Year🤲🏾🖤 pic.twitter.com/RO9bj6ECno
— Djed Spence (@DjedSpence) April 25, 2022
One version of events can be traced back to the tenure of ex-Boro boss Neil Warnock, who has publicly stated that Spence needed to "sort himself out" last summer.
"I let him [Spence] go. He needed to sort himself out, really," Warnock told Talksport in January.
"I basically said to him that you can go to the top or you can go non-league.
"I think Steve Cooper is the manager for him, to be honest. He has let him go forward more often, which suits his game."
Warnock mentioning Steve Cooper leads us nicely to the impact that the former Swansea and England youth coach has had upon Forest (and Spence) this season.
It is hard to underplay the impact Cooper has had at the City Ground since he succeeded the outgoing Chris Hughton last September: Forest winning 24 of their 39 games (62%) in all comps under their current coach, losing just six games, to charge up the table into the play-off places.
The 42-year-old Cooper plays a demanding 5-2-3 system that morphs quickly into a 4-3-3 if its wing-backs are up to the task - and Spence most certainly has been.
The former Fulham academy graduate has thrived in his role on the right flank and gained national attention for a dazzling display in Forest's 1-0 FA Cup win over Arsenal in January, after which Gunners legend Ian Wright backed him to go on to great things.
"I saw him after the game and said 'listen, my friend. You're on loan from Middlesbrough and I don't know what's happened there, because if you can't get into the Middlesbrough side, I don't know what's wrong, so I need to know the full story'," the ex-England international said on the Wrighty's House podcast.
"But let me say, that was one of the best right back performances I have seen for a very long time. A very long time.
"If we are talking about right-backs performing at an unbelievable level, we're talking Reece James and Trent (Alexander-Arnold).
"But I have not seen a combative, technical, swashbuckling performance like that for a very long time."
Proud moment for me to make my @England u21’s Debut 📈 Honoured & Humbled🦁 pic.twitter.com/Dv9f7cWzrw
— Djed Spence (@DjedSpence) March 30, 2022
Unsurprisingly, the England Under-21 international has ranked very highly in the dribbling stakes in the Championship this term, only five players (Willock, Gyokeres, Dembélé, O'Brien and Bowler) completing more so far in 2021/22.
Spence has also registered some impressive key passing stats - ranking in the 'Top 20' wide players in the division with 36 to his name.
Forest's rampaging wing-back has also fulfilled his defensive duties. No player in the Championship has blocked more crosses this season (18) and Spence has only been dribbled past on 18 occasions, relatively few for a player who is constantly being called upon to enforce wide areas.
Back in January, Forest boss Cooper called upon Spence to back up his consistently impressive displays with better end product, as he remarkably hadn't registered an assist at that point.
The wing-back has risen to the challenge with four Championship assists since then and an absolute rocket of a strike against QPR that scooped him the Sky Bet Championship Goal of the Month award in March.
Talk of awards and honours brings us back to Spence's inclusion in the Championship Team of the Season last weekend, the young wideman taking his spot on the right of a midfield four featuring his Forest team-mate Ryan Yates, Bournemouth's Philip Billing and another flying wing-back in the form of Fulham's Antonee Robinson.
As mentioned, Neil Warnock was in two minds regarding Spence at the start of the season; was he destined for the top or for non-league? It's now a rhetorical question.
Check out the articles for all of those featured so far...
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NameDjed Spence Born/Age2000-08-09(23 -yrs-old) Nationality England  Jamaica PositionDefender (Right Back) (Right Midfielder) | |
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