the Rovers' captaincy by Mark Hughes following the departure of Barry Ferguson to Rangers, a recognition of his continued solid performances. He once again won the player of the year and then led Rovers to European qualification the following season. Todd elbowed Robin van Persie in the head, drawing blood, near the end of a 2005 FA Cup Semi Final against Arsenal. The FA subsequently cleared him of any wrongdoing. Todd's name came up in the 2006 allegations of corruption in English football. Then-Portsmouth manager Harry Redknapp was secretly filmed discussing the possibility of buying Todd with agent Peter Harrison, which is illegal under FA rules. However, the programme merely showed Harrison approaching Redknapp and asking direct questions which Redknapp answered. Redknapp simply stated, "Yeah, I'd have him, I like Toddy, he's a tough bastard." He had however found first team opportunities hard to come by during the latter stages of the 2006–2007 season, after talks with Todd, Mark Hughes let it be known that he was available for transfer, Derby County, Sunderland, Birmingham City, Wigan Athletic and Portsmouth all expressed an interest. Derby County Todd joined Derby County, a newly promoted Premier League club, for an undisclosed fee believed to be around £750,000 on 7 July 2007. He scored a late equaliser on his debut against Portsmouth on 11 August 2007. However, his performance level soon dropped and after making two mistakes in Derby's 1–4 FA Cup defeat to Preston, Derby boss Paul Jewell dropped him. It was announced on 8 May 2008 that Todd was not in Jewell's plans for his restructuring of the Derby squad following relegation and he would be allowed to leave on a free transfer. On 24 November 2008, Todd joined Northampton Town of League One on loan until 3 January 2009. This was the first time Todd had played outside the top two tiers of English football. On 25 November 2008, Todd made his debut for The Cobblers in 2–1 victory against Leeds United. He returned to Derby County in January 2009, after featuring in seven league games for Northampton. His first game for Derby after returning from Northampton was the League Cup semi-final first leg against Manchester United, with Todd helping Derby to a 1–0 victory. Todd also played in the second leg of the semi-final, but could not prevent Derby losing 4–3 on aggregate. Todd appeared regularly at the end of