Shape to Fit

The 23-year-old has not played – or, indeed, trained with the first-team – since suffering a knee injury in the Pilgrims 1-0 defeat at Barnet on March 1 last year.

Twelve months on, Ryan has yet to kick a ball in anger and, although the current season has only eight weeks to run, Derek has not written off his chances of playing before the end of the campaign.

He said: “He’s progressing; he’s running; he’ll begin to train very soon with the squad, so we are hopeful he can progress from there. He’s been a year out now; it’s been a long time, longer than we had all hoped. We are hopeful he can progress quicker over the next month.

“He has got to get his fitness levels up, his training regime up, and it’s how quickly he can do that. Usually, you get a few setbacks, a niggle here and there, because you haven’t trained for a long time.

“We have only got 13 games to go, so it depends how quickly he gets into training and gets game-time. You never say ‘never’.”

Of Argyle’s other longer-term injured players, defender Gary Miller is closest to a comeback.

“We are hopeful we can get a Peninsula League game very soon,” said Derek. “He’s progressing well. Connor Smith is probably a week behind him; David Ijaha is probably a number of weeks behind them; Arnie Garita has started to run – in the next few weeks, we’ll see where he is.”