LISTEN to Shane Duffy’s Media Conference today at Lennoxtown, on the morning after the night before when “The Brighton Bobo” headed home his second goal in two starts to set Celtic on their way to a 2-1 victory, and aside from the desperation of the agenda-setters to turn his self-confessed dream move to Celtic into some kind of negative, the Irishman was having none of it.
And he revealed that the Irish manager Stephen Kenny, who knows the Scottish game well of course, is actually HAPPY that Duffy has moved to Celtic. Drat and doubt drat for the press pack – these are the guys that Celtic INVITE to these press conferences based on the media landscape the way it used to be and no longer is.
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Duffy explained why playing for Celtic can actually help the Irish side and knows that he has his national manager’s backing. The level of criticism out there for all things relating to Celtic is increasing all the time. We even had that outrageous article in the Glasgow Times the other day on the book about Sam English, and James Forrest on The Celtic Blog handled this brilliantly. Well done James, and well worth a read. Something that could have been mentioned – but wasn’t – is that there’s a poster on one of their leading forums who calls himself Sam English’s Knee. The moron’s moron that one.
On playing for Celtic, Shane Duffy remains delighted with the move and the way his first two games have gone as he nevertheless strives to get up to speed. He didn’t celebrate his goal too much last night as he was still angry with himself for his role in the early Saints opener. Standards.
“I’m enjoying it again and it’s good to be part of the team again. I’m still early in my career here and I’m looking forward to playing as many games as I can.
“Hopefully more games will make me feel sharper and bond with the team more. It’s been a good start and the lads have been brilliant with me,” Duffy stated. One player he’s been particularly impressed with is Ryan Christie, who notched up two assists last night and also won the penalty.
Incidentally the one thing I’d suggest that Celtic do differently is to rotate penalty-kick takers. If they have no idea who is going to take one then the keeper loses his intel. That said Edouard’s effort was pretty much awful.
“Ryan’s a real creative player. I was buzzing with his deliveries, which are brilliant for us. He’s a quality player and he shows it training. I’m excited to keep playing with him and hopefully he can put more on my head!”
So how many goals can ‘Goal-a-Game-Shane’ notch up this season? “There’s no target, I’m just taking it game by game and I’ll see how many goals I can get. Hopefully it helps the team, which is the most important thing.”
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A few weeks back we were faced with the prospect of going eleven points points behind the Rangers. Now after last night’s hard fought victory against a dogged and extra-defensive St Mirren side, Celtic now know that a win against Livingston at Celtic Park on Saturday will see us go to the top of the league.
“We know all these games are important to us,” Duffy admitted. “We started sloppy against St Mirren but it was a great reaction and then we controlled the whole game. We also had a penalty miss and a lot of chances.
“I was fuming with myself for the first goal for being sloppy. I wanted to just get back in the lead and that was it. My standards are high for myself and I want every pass to be perfect so I was getting frustrated. It will come, but I’m still happy with how it went and those passes will come.
“The Livingston game is big because that’s where we want to be. We know we can go top of the league and push on from there and stay there.”
You can watch The Brighton Bobo’s media conference below…
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