3) Matt Derbyshire is forgiven for his mistakes.
I’m not going to lie to you. Earlier on in the season, Matt Derbyshire was my – along with thousands of other Rotherham fans – favourite scapegoat. Every week, I’d listen to the commentators describe him pass up chance after chance, and hang my head in shame at his repeated failure to put the ball into an empty net. The problem with not being able to go to many matches is that I didn’t understand what actually was happening (and therefore, didn’t understand why Derbyshire kept his place in the team instead of young strikers such as Jordan Bowery and Jonson Clarke-Harris, who I both thought offered more to the team). Yes, Derbyshire was missing chance after chance (after chance, after chance, after.. you get the idea). But if it wasn’t for him, we would never have had those opportunities to miss in the first place. His Premier League experience shone through, as he constantly made clever runs and found himself with space to run into goal. He would run himself into the ground, hungry for his next opportunity. Yes, he was missing most of those chances. But he’d been moved on from club to club, unable to find himself a permanent place in a team – can you blame him for being short of confidence? He found his confidence in a near perfect performance against Bolton in late January, getting two assists as well as notching his first league goal for the club. Since then, his high quality performances have been clear to see – even to football dunces like myself. He’s scored 4 goals since his turn in form in January, making him the club’s top scorer – and, arguably, top performer. He runs himself into the ground every game, always believing that the next chance is just around the corner.
When he’s involved, it usually is.
