Wright's Derby Reaction

Callum Wright watched the first 57 minutes of Argyle’s match against Derby County on Tuesday night from the bench, trying to work out how he could change the fortunes of the game.

The Greens trailed to a Nathaniel Mendez-Laing goal during a first half which Derby had the best of, although Argyle showed signs of life after they went a goal down and looked stronger in as the game progressed.

Wright was introduced as a substitute just before the hour mark, as Steven Schumacher changed his side’s shape, and put on Callum to play alongside Danny Mayor and Finn Azaz in support of frontman Ryan Hardie.

With a couple of minutes of coming on, Wright was played through by Azaz, and though his low shot took a deflection, it looped over goalkeeper Joe Wildsmith and gave Argyle an equaliser.

Ten minutes later, after Azaz was fouled, Hardie slotted a penalty to give Argyle a huge three points Derby, a side who thought they were about to close their gap to the second-placed Pilgrims to seven points, but finished the night 13 adrift.

“I felt like we needed runners,” said Callum, of his experience as a spectator before his introduction. “I felt Derby would've struggled with the runners in behind them, to help Ryan. I was watching and thought ‘I could impact, here: Finn and Danny are getting on the ball, I can run off them’. And I got a goal from it!

“I knew the defender would come sliding over. I was just hoping to hit it under him and it's just right them under and it would either go through or be blocked. Luckily enough it got through and into the back of the net.

“We were on top, and when the crowd are at you like that, it's tough. It's a tough place to come anyway, so as soon as we have the crowd on top of them and we were on top of them, it was going to be a tough last 20 minutes for them.

“The atmosphere was great, the fans really came and to get the win and three points against Derby was massive. A perfect night really.”

Argyle face another team in the top six with promotion aspirations this Saturday, as they travel to Barnsley.

After that, the Pilgrims will be into the final ten games of the campaign, and head to Oakwell five points ahead of Ipswich Town, in third, with a Papa Johns Trophy final against Bolton Wanderers still over the horizon, in April.

Callum cannot wait.

“It's the top end of the table and these clashes are going to come in the season,” he said. “That's why I came here; that's why the Gaffer’s brought me in. I just want to keep impacting them, play a part in them. We’ve got Wembley coming up and a big end of the season, hopefully we can kick on and keep pushing.

“We're relentless and we’re not going to stop here. We're going to keep pushing and keep going. It’s another big game on Saturday at Barnsley away. We’ve got 11 games left and we haven’t achieved our goal yet.”