[Archived] Matt Derbyshire

[LeChuck]

He started 8 straight matches in all competetions for us in 2006-2007 in that spring from the 0-0 draw at ewood against Leverkusen until the 1-2 loss to Villa at home the week before our FA Cup semi against Chelsea.

These are some good facts...I also sense you're enjoying this so I'm going to take advantage if I can! Do you know how many goals he scored in those 8 games...or how many of his goals have come from games he has started in vs. games he came on as sub.

[Florida Rover]

He scored 2 goals in that 8 game run:one was the aforementioned lone goal against man utd in our 4-1 whipping(*remember the joy at the time we were up onthem after 30 minutes only for it to come all crashing down in the second half) and the other was a 90th minute goal against man city in the FA cup 6th round.(remember t'Axe scored one of his few goals as we won 2-0).

[Hughesy]

Getting linked to all sorts of players at the moment aint we - good to see us linked to some youth though!

As for Derbyshire - He is not good enough to start for us, he has not deserved that right either. £4m would be fantastic business as he isnt going to become better than Benni & RSC anytime soon.

[blue phil]

£4m would be fantastic business as he isnt going to become better than Benni & RSC anytime soon.

He'll never be as good as Cruz - he's not as strong and doesn't hold the ball up as well . Cruz rarely loses possession .

As for McCarthy let's not forget that he only started in the latter part of the season because there was no-one else available . He's overweight and lazy and vastly over-rated . And he's not getting younger .

If Derbyshire were to stay he would supplant McCarthy's place in no time at all ..........or at least move above him in the pecking order .

As for all these stats on his starting record we should remember the number of times when he was stuck out on the wing , clearly a fish out of water .

Having said all that , taking into account Allardyce's footballing strategy , if a good price can be had we might as well take it . It'll never happen but a Cruz /Derbyshire partnership might have been worth a shot if we had a midfield to supply them .