Defensively, he's been excellent to start this season, and to his credit, he absolutely was one of our better players to finish last year too. It wasn't just the eye test - the statistics backed him up hugely.
With a decent CB partner next to him, in Masterson and now Ogie, he's an experienced defensive asset with a canny knack of intercepting passes. Nobody could fault him on that front with any credibility right now, which is what you want from your backline.
However, I've always had that concern about his distribution and ironically I thought the very opposite of you at at Sutton. For me, Max was guilty (especially in the first half) of long, aerial balls out from the back which were aimed centrally. That's Centre Back Soup for the opposition. His passing success % through 3 league two games this year is 57.9% (think about that in context and how many CB passes are often just side-to-side). Against Sutton, I looked it up - he hit 13 long balls of which only 2 retained possession. To be fair to Max, I didn't notice it as much as Stockport, but for me, he's a wise head who should be able to recognise the percentages and understand that in that kind of game, holding the ball is vital to managing the tempo of what comes back at you.
With Ethan Coleman (and Dieng on Tuesday) in front of him, I'd love to see him just get it down a bit more at times, and build. Several times he smacked it long, he actually had much more time. Coleman is a potentially very good link player with his mobility. Or if the ball does go long, strategically, at the very least keep them out wide, so it's more likely to be headed out for a throw in than just lumped on a CB's noggin back up the field - full backs won't be heading it back infield. Sutton kept bringing the ball back into our half quickly and directly. It needed a savvy head to lift some pressure and he's the guy that needs to do that for us.
I accept he's is never going to made out to be a ball playing CB. And - full disclosure - perhaps he's being coached to play out like that? (Ogie had roughly similar numbers of long balls that game - but to be fair, he completed 5 of 9). But it's literally the one thing if he addressed, as our veteran centre back, that would round off his game for me. It's something he could help Ogie with too, right?
But for clarity - I have absolutely no other quibbles - his defensive game throughout 2023 has been terrific. I'm glad he's part of the squad.