John Egan can step up as centre-backs must adapt to new roles under Kenny

Shane Duffy and John Egan look set to anchor a new era. Picture: Sportsfile

It’s been quite the week for Shane Duffy.

Signing for Celtic, the club he adored as a boy, was momentous enough but the Derryman followed it by captaining his country against Bulgaria. The emotion of the occasion was only heightened by the fact that it was his first game for Ireland since his father Brian passed away earlier this year.

His 90-plus minutes in Sofia were just as eventful.

With just one start and three appearances off the bench for Brighton since football’s return, Duffy creaked into gear. He admitted that it hadn’t been his finest hour-and-a-half in the minutes after rescuing a point for Stephen Kenny with an injury-time header from Robbie Brady’s corner.

It was an error on his own part that had allowed Bulgaria take the lead. Somehow Duffy and John Egan allowed Bozhidar Kraev the freedom of the city in the Irish penalty area and the Midtylland midfielder celebrated with a finish under Darren Randolph.

Ring-rust is permissable in the circumstances but Celtic’s new centre-back was hesitant with the ball at his feet as Ireland sought to play out from their own lines and it is that weakness that precipitated his slip down the pecking order at the Amex and eventually depart for Glasgow.

It’s impossible to see Kenny dispensing with Duffy just as Graham Potter did at club level but that discomfort in possession will increase the responsibility on his partner at the heart of the Irish defence in the months and years to come.

So, step forward John Egan. Literally.

Egan is the anchor in the three-man Sheffield United central defence that allows Chris Basham and Jack O’Connell roam forward to such effect but he will be expected to take the ball into midfield at times with Ireland as opponents push up on the midfield orchestrators.

It’s a long time since that has been the job description for an Ireland centre-back but the sight of a visibly frustrated James McCarthy motioning Duffy to push up with the ball during the game in Sofia was a clear representation of what it expected in this new dawn.

Listen to Egan’s club manager and it would appear to be something well within his ken. Chris Wilder gushed about a rock-solid character who has produced performances on a weekly basis against world-class strikers when Egan signed a new four-year contract with the Blades recently.

That’s the defensive side sorted.

If there is an “uncomfortable” side to him then Wilder said it is nothing to do with any unwillingness to take ownership of the ball. It was instead, evident in his refusal to use the new deal in Yorkshire as a signal to get comfy with his lot and curb his ambitions.

The United manager has spoken of Egan as a man the club can build the team around, a player who stepped up to Premier League level last season and didn’t blink, and a guy whose footballing abilities were evident at Brentford where technique has been a core principle in recent times.

His stats were impressive last term, up there alongside Virgil van Dyke in some defensive categories actually, and he rediscovered a goalscoring touch at the end of the season that had been misplaced for a time after his move to Bramall Lane.

Enda Stevens has been witness to all those characteristics and more.

“He’s a born leader,” said his Sheffield United and Ireland teammate. “It comes natural to him on the pitch. He’s one of the loudest in the changing room and one of the loudest on the pitch. He demands the best off his team-mates and has the respect of all the lads.

“He has grown each year, gotten better and better, especially when he joined Sheffield United. He fit the final piece of the puzzle we needed to be a promotion team and he helped us to get over the line.”

Egan was Wilder’s top target when the latter parted with a club record fee back in 2018. The satisfaction the Englishman exhibited on landing his man at the time was palpable but the player hasn’t always been embraced so tightly by his country.

Bulgaria was just his ninth full cap and his fifth time to start alongside Duffy. The European Championship qualifier away to Georgia last October was a belated competitive debut and only a sixth run of any stripe in the two-and-a-half years since his debut.

Martin O’Neill and Mick McCarthy could point to Ireland’s stinginess at the back when making cases for their defence here. That and the fact that space was at a premium given Duffy has featured in 25 of the 30 games played since Egan debuted against Iceland.

Richard Keogh soldiered alongside Duffy seven times in that spell, Ciaran Clark another six, but Kenny said last April that the man from Cork with the famous Kerry blood has the potential to change the dynamic of the back four.

Showing courage on the ball will have to be a large part of that.