Graham Potter, the manager of Premier League club Brighton, who are flying high this season (I’ll skip the Seagull puns) has been talking about the effect having former Celtic loanee Shane Duffy back in their ranks has had. In the lead up to tonight’s match against Crystal Palace, where incidentally he will line up against ex team mate and one of the notorious ‘wantaways’ from last season, Odsonne Édouard.
Talking to Sky Sports, Potter said: ““He is a club legend. For what he has achieved at the club and helping the team get promoted and what he’s done in the Premier League. Everyone loves him at the club.
“He’s a fantastic guy, a great character. Everyone is delighted that he’s back, that he’s playing, enjoying his football.
“As a human being, he’s someone you want in your corner, it doesn’t matter where you are. He supports the team, he supports the boys on the pitch. He’s a fighter, he’s a warrior.
“You want those guys with you in hostile environments and Selhurst Park on a Monday night is one of those things.”
Talking about the aerial presence Duffy brings to the team he added:
“It’s a huge asset. He must be one of the dangerous in the Premier League in terms of his size, how strong he is, his desire to attack the ball and throw his body in the way of things, of course, it’s a big asset.
“He has been really good for us in that area and long may it continue.”
Reading this glowing report from Potter if we didn’t know better we would be thinking ‘this is the type of defender we need in our squad’. After how Shane performed last season you will not find a Celtic fan anywhere who will read these quotes and be able to match them with the same player we saw have an absolutely disastrous time in a Celtic jersey.
Being from Ireland and having watched their recent Internationals I can tell you he is back to being as solid as a rock in their defensive line, as he was for years before his tumultuous spell in the hoops where he seem to just lose all confidence.
This leads to the question of how a player so highly regarded by both his current and International manager, on top of being a huge Celtic fan, could fail so badly at our club?
Personally I think it’s a mixture of two things. First it’s our style of play. The other was his confidence being shot early into his Celtic career. As a club we are renowned for attacking football. In domestic competition we have the majority of possession with our fullbacks playing high up the pitch. When we lose the ball and get counter attacked we need our centre backs to have pace to deal with attackers. One of the things Duffy doesn’t possess is pace.
Something else he lacks is passing ability. With our centre backs being tasked with building from the back this was something he was never comfortable with. I can think of countless errors he made trying to be a ‘ball playing centre back’. These factors contributed to Duffy losing his confidence and just falling to pieces. I think he also struggled with the expectations put on you at a club like Celtic.
This is why today we can see him excel playing for Brighton and Ireland. No great expectations. Defending solidly comes before anything else. Defenders are expected to defend, not begin attacks. This is true of both teams.
In conclusion I blame whoever signed Duffy in the first place. The problem unfortunately is we don’t know who that is as our recruitment team is seemingly a cabal of non footballing financial men who have way too much say on what happens on the pitch. Until this is sorted I fear many more disastrous signings along the way.
Conall McGinty
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