Just when Shane Duffy thought his experience as a Celtic player couldn’t get any worse, up pops Adam Virgo to compare Duffy’s tenure in a Celtic shirt with his own less than distinguished career playing for the Hoops.
Speaking in Scottish Sun Virgo reckons that the Ireland captain has no future at either Celtic – where he is enduring a dreadful season long loan – or his parent club Brighton and could end up signing for Nottingham Forest in the summer as he seeks to get his career back on track. And Virgo reckons that Duffy should be thankful that there are no supporters at matches this season because with his performances things would be ten times worse for the Irish stopper.
Peter Lawwell forked out a £2million loan fee to bring Duffy to Glasgow for the Ten-in-a-Row bid and is paying 100% of the player’s wages, beloved to be around £45,000 per week. He also decided to let Jozo Simunovic leave the club in May to make way for the Irishman and few if any supporters reckon that this was money well spent. The same of course could be said on the goalkeeping situation -ie is Barkas better that Craig Gordon? And at left wing back has any of the three who have played in that position this season – Bolingoli, Taylor of Laxalt – proved themselves to be an upgrade on Jonny Hayes?
Brighton-born former Celt Adam Virgo is now a BT Sport pundit, and he had this to say about Shane Duffy’s season from hell playing for his boyhood heroes. “I don’t think anyone could have foreseen the time Shane’s had, but I’ve been through it at that club.
“After one or two bad performances your confidence is low, you’re scared to make a mistake. I dread to think what Shane would have been like with a full crowd there. I think it would have been ten times worse for him.
“He looked a bag of nerves coming on against (the)Rangers. Signings like this can happen, like myself. At Celtic I played right-back, centre mid, centre-half and was pulled from pillar to post.
“It’s a huge club and people say if you’re not big enough to handle it you shouldn’t be there. But they forget the personal aspect — you can’t hide on the football field.
READ THIS…“We need to forget about the defeat and move on,” Celtic Star David Turnbull
“Sometimes when you try too hard it goes the other way. You make more mistakes, decisions which turn out to be the wrong ones. Unfortunately for Shane he’s made too many mistakes which have led to goals.
“He finished at Blackburn before Brighton and went through a period of making mistakes and scoring own goals and when he first came to Brighton he really struggled.
“But the difference was Brighton clicked into gear and started winning. He’s had shaky games at Celtic but the team hasn’t performed. Neil’s going to be very brave to stick with him. I don’t think Shane can say he has not been given chances.
“I don’t see Shane going back to Brighton because he won’t get into the side. Why would they bring someone who’s struggled at Celtic back into a side that’s struggling too?
“Other clubs will take him in the Championship. I guarantee Chris Hughton, who had him at Brighton, would snap him up at Nottingham Forest.
“As much as I know Lenny — and he’s a really loyal guy — he might have to look Shane in the eye and say it’s as much as he can do, unless he can’t bring anyone else in and he’s got no other choice.”
READ THIS…Dubai, Diddy Teams, our Digital Season and an Interview Request for Peter Lawwell to consider carefully
