Celtic pundit Kevin Graham has recently made a claim about Shane Duffy’s performance against Wales and what that could mean for the Bhoys.
Graham was a guest on the latest episode of the ‘A Celtic State of Mind’ podcast and the panel discussed multiple issues involving the Bhoys. One topic of discussion was Duffy’s performance against Wales for the Ireland national team recently. Graham believes that Duffy played like a leader against Wales and he was full of praise for the defender.
Ireland lost 1-0 to Wales, thanks to a David Brooks goal but Duffy started at centre-back for Ireland. He picked up a rating of 6.99 in the game and he was the highest-performing player for Stephen Kenny’s men in the game (as per Whoscored).
Should Duffy start against Hibs?
Yes
No
Graham talked about Duffy’s performance and he believes that he might have to come into the Celtic side for their game against Hibernian because of the quarantine issues surrounding Kristoffer Ajer.
He said: “He was Ireland’s best defender and probably Ireland’s best player on the day. They’re going through a bit of a rough patch at the moment, the Republic of Ireland, but he was an absolute leader for them yesterday and it was really, really positive and good to see.
“Obviously we are sitting here in another [pandemic] outbreak – the two Norwegian guys have got to quarantine, so you’re probably looking at Duffy playing.
“It was really good to see him get a wee bit of confidence, like have a decent game.”
TIF Thoughts on Graham’s comments regarding Duffy…
The 28-year-old defender has come up with some unimpressive performances for Celtic in their recent games as he picked up rather underwhelming ratings against the likes of Rangers, Aberdeen, Milan and Sparta Prague (as per WhoScored).
Kris Commons also criticised Duffy’s performance against Aberdeen and described him to be ‘rank rotten’.
This suggests that he’s not had the best of times for Celtic and the fact that he impressed for Ireland against Wales is a big positive.
Christopher Jullien’s presence isn’t clear for the Hibernian clash and Ajer’s facing quarantine issues too. So, Duffy might have to step in against Hibs and build on from his performance against Wales.