Matt Smith - play long or keep passing?

Our first signing of the summer, Matt Smith, has opened an inquisitive debate over whether we are going to play long balls up the field to him, as he is 6ft 6", or if we are going to sustain the plan of pass and move which seemed to be implanted in the team by Brian McDermott at the end of last season when he took over from Neil Warnock as manager.

Personally I feel this question will be answered depending on the type of players we bring in this summer. If we show no ambition with the wide players we bring in then it will start to look like we intend to pump long balls directly up the field and establish a route one game style. Although, I highly doubt this as Brian McDermott has said there will be no long balls!

Matt Smith obviously excels when the ball is in the air and in my opinion, the best way to exploit his speciality is to play fast paced, tricky wing play and get lots of crosses into the box. And it's clear for all fans to see that we don't have an established pacey, tricky winger apart from the likes of Dominic Poleon but you need the both wings to be occupied by players of the pacey/tricky characteristics if we are to use Smith's outstanding aerial threat to our advantage.

I have to admit that by studying Brian McDermott as an overall manager, from when he worked at Reading, I believe that his philosophy is to pass and keep the ball on the ground, also at Reading he used his two wing men alot. If he is still in the same way of thinking, he will do as I have predicted and use his wingers methodically to exploit Matt Smith's heading ability and hopefully come out on top of his opponents.

Let me know how you think we should use Matt Smith next season in the comments section below.