Shane Duffy

Genuinely amazed at lads not seeing this. The stock answer will be something along the lines of ''Duffy's passing isn't all that bad'' (which it isn't) , but ''not all that bad'' is clearly not quite enough for Potter. Duffy is probably still Brighton's out & out best defender, but in the sense of a team playing under the cosh constantly trying to repel multiple attacks, which is where Duffy has excelled in the last 2 seasons. As he generally has done for us since becoming first choice after 2016. 

Even allowing for how poor Newcastle were, especially at home, Potter's Brighton are an entirely different team to Hughton's Brighton, they are knocking it about across the back, taking Matt Ryan's kickouts very short, bringing the ball out from defence, very few long balls from defence, playing about 20 yards higher up than they did for the last 2 years, trying to win games based on possession football, very little of which suits Duffy's natural game. 

He will get back into the first team, there will be injuries or suspensions to other defenders, but how he acquits himself in the new Brighton system will be the sole factor as to whether he stays in it or not. He might surprise us all, but I wouldn't think his prospects are particularly great at the minute. 

None of that makes any difference to Ireland in the short term, Mick sees a big, strong, tall defender who commands his area, wins headers, blocks shots, does great slide tackles and generally repels attacks, all of which Duffy excels at, so that'll do for Mick, because he hasn't any plans on playing expansive football out from the back. 

In a broader picture, it is something a lot of the lads shouting about Crowley, Byrne, Cullen etc don't seem to have realised yet, for all or any of those players to have an influence on a game on a consistent basis, they need to be surrounded by other technically proficient footballers, particularly at CB where a passing/footballing type CB who can take the ball out from the back would be needed to create space and get the best out of their attacking instincts. Duffy, on his career so far, and for all his many positive attributes, is not that man. 

First time watching Brighton over 90 mins this season today, and have to say I was well impressed, even though they didn't win when they should have. Would love to see us playing that type of football, but that is probably going to be Kenny's conundrum, do we drop some of our current best performers like Duffy & McClean in order to play a more expansive and possession based style, or do we stay settling for the ''solid at the back/wingers as auxiliary fullbacks'' template which we have been playing for the last 3 decades under a variety of conservative managers. 

There was also a green glasses tinted outcry on here when Hughton was sacked by Brighton, but I pointed out at the time that Tony Bloom (Brighton chairman) is a professional gambler who makes his decisions based on mathematics, statistics, probability and algorithms. It's not that today's game alone will have vindicated his decision, it's far too early to tell, but even allowing for the abjectness of Newcastle, he'll be nothing short of ecstatic at today's possession stats. Mainly as he'll have calculated that more often than not, he has vastly increased his chances of winning games with the possession type game that Potter is trying to implement. 

Duffy could, in the longer term, end up being a casualty of that (or maybe a beneficiary if Potter's attempts fail), but if Duffy himself doesn't adapt, he's eventually off to a Burnley type outfit who are content to mainly play without the ball. That's also why his Ireland place is under no threat whatsoever under this manager. 

Dyche wasn’t the manager when Duffy was on loan at Burnley. Eddie Howe was 

He’s good enough for a bigger team that plays four at the back. His agent should get him out of there

Better defender than Michael Keane. Everton are woeful and shouldn’t have ever let Duffy leave.