Plymouth Argyle, Blackburn Rovers deal backfired after Tony Pulis decision | OneFootball

Matt Derbyshire struggled to make his mark at Home Park, with a change in management not helping his cause

Football is a game of opinions, we all know that, meaning a player can be a game-changer in one manager’s eyes, and a bit-part player in another’s.

Matt Derbyshire found that out to his detriment during his time at Plymouth Argyle, with his loan move from Blackburn Rovers going south just weeks after making the move to Home Park.

The downturn was nothing of his own doing, but that of the Argyle board, who replaced Bobby Williamson with Tony Pulis during the 05/06 campaign, which changed things dramatically for the young forward.

Matt Derbyshire’s Plymouth Argyle stint falters after Tony Pulis appointment

Pulis has made no secret during his managerial career of favouring giants all over the park, and that was no different at Home Park where burly beasts were the order of the day under the Welshman.

Target man Mickey Evans was thriving up top, with fellow physical frontmen Nick Chadwick and Vincent Pericard also given the nod throughout the season, while Leon Clarke played his part for a few weeks late on in the campaign.

All those forwards are no stranger to putting their bodies about, challenging defenders for aerial duels, and trying to get on the end of balls into the box, as Pulisball began to come into action in the southwest.

This left Derbyshire - a player signed just weeks earlier when Williamson was in charge - as a man on the fringes at Home Park, with his diminutive stature never going to attract Pulis into making him a regular.

Having likely been promised regular game time under the previous boss, the teenage talent started two of his first three matches after makati the move to Devon, but soon found himself on the periphery of first-team proceedings, with scant chance to make an impact once Pulis was instated.

As a result, the striker was sent back to Lancashire in the new year, having failed to find the back of the net, with his first real chance of first-team football taken from under him after the change in management.

Matt Derbyshire goes on to embark on European career after Blackburn Rovers departure

Weeks later Derbyshire signed for League Two Wrexham and netted ten times in 16 league matches, with the striker eager to prove his doubters wrong after his drab time in Devon.

Time in the Blackburn side followed, before he made the eye-catching decision to sign for Olympiacos back in 2009, and would go on to spend the next year with the Greek giants, competing in the Champions League in the process.

Birmingham City, Nottingham Forest and Oldham Athletic can all count themselves among the stops the forward took during his career after his return to England, before once again being tempted by a move far from these shores, with Omonia Nicosia bringing him to Cyprus in the summer of 2016.

At one point in his first season with the club, the former England under-21 international was the top English scorer in Europe, with former Newcastle United boss John Carver the man in the dugout at the time.

Stints in Australia and India followed, before he ended his playing days with Bradford City last season, hanging his boots up at the age of 38.

It was a career that generally struggled to get going on English soil, but thrived abroad, with his stint at Home Park proving to be the first spell of many where he failed to become a regular starter in the EFL.