Veteran Matt Derbyshire offering advice to Bantams strikers

Graham Alexander sees the veteran striker as an important asset to increase their attacking threat – as a coach.

The 37-year-old has hardly featured this season and is well down the pecking order.

But he has been helping out Alexander in a coaching role – something the City boss is keen to encourage.

“Derbs has been really good,” said Alexander. “He’ll see little bits and I think he has empathy with strikers.

“He hasn’t done excessive work with them but we’re trying to get him involved on the analysis side with myself and the other staff to see anything we might be overlooking from a forward’s perspective.

“He still trains with us but he’s half and half. He’s getting a bit of stick from both parties at the minute, the staff and the players!

“He’s a good character, a really experienced player, intelligent, good communicator and it was staring me right in the face.

“How could we use what this guy has to offer in the best way for Bradford City?

“I’m not writing him off as a player. He’s still got games left in his legs.

“But I just wanted to try something different.”

Derbyshire has played less than three hours of football this season.

He started one game against Grimsby in early September and has come off the bench nine times – the last in the closing minutes of City’s home defeat to Crawley on January 6.

The 37-year-old has been named in the squad just once since.

Alexander added: “He wasn’t getting the game time that he would aspire to.

“We brought in some players in January and I wanted to entrust them to help us improve as a team. I see the future in these guys.

“I had a really good chat with Derbs and told him that I still felt he had great value and put it on to him.

“I was trying to find a solution. We’re creating loads of chances but not getting the ball in the back of the net.

Matt Derbyshire in the dug-out with Kevin McDonald, right (Image: Thomas Gadd)

“I said to him, ‘you’ve scored goals for 15-20 years, you’re not getting game time and I’m not retiring you. Don’t think like that.’

“But there could be a way where he could help us and we could help him. What did he think?

“I gave him a couple of days to think about it and he came back and said he’d like to give it a go for the foreseeable future.

“There’s no guarantees where it will lead to for either party. It’s just about using our resources to find a winning formula.

“Whether it’s on or off the pitch, at the training ground, wherever, we have to have an open mind about who can help us.”

Derbyshire initially helped out in the dug-out with Kevin McDonald when the Scot was put in temporary charge before Alexander’s appointment in November.

Alexander can see him developing into a coach if he wants to.

“I know he had the stint previously to me coming in here. That’s what made me start to think about it.

“I had a conversation with him there and then and he was umming and ahing about whether to go fully for that or for this.

“I told him that if he wanted to go for the coaching side he had to fully commit to it. He couldn’t be half and half.

“I let it roll and there’s a long way to go. But as a starting point, he is communicating on something he knows very well and that’s forward players scoring goals.

“He’s not having to deal with the back three or the midfield. It’s a specific role.

“You have them at all clubs for goalkeepers so why have we not got coaches for specific areas?

“I feel him doing that could potentially make us all a better staff which ultimately would be better for the players.

“I do see a potential coach in the future. But I’ve made it clear to him that I’m not trying to retire him from playing football.”