Duhaney has a chance to win his place
ALTHOUGH Danny Simpson will have two days left on his contract when Huddersfield Town visit the City Ground on Sunday, last weekend’s defeat by Wigan was the right-back’s last appearance for the club.
The effect Simpson had on the side this season was striking and immediate.
Prior to his debut against Millwall, Town had conceded 17 goals in eight games and kept no clean sheets. In their first eight with Simpson in the side, they conceded just seven goals and kept four clean sheets.
Nonetheless, Simpson leaving is no huge surprise. He was only on a short-term deal, he is 33 and he was brought in to solve a specific problem – namely that Florent Hadergjonaj kept leaving a gaping hole in the defence that other players had to plug, dragging team-mates all out of position and throwing the Town defence into disarray.
All those factors might have faded into irrelevance had Simpson had more to offer going forward, but there was always a sense that the Cowleys were being forced to tailor their approach up the right-hand side to his limitations.
The same is true of any player, of course, but we have seen from the revelatory performances Harry Toffolo has put in on the opposite flank exactly what it is the brothers want from their full-backs: dynamic, overlapping, tireless, and as good in attack as they are in defence.
That described Simpson when he helped Leicester win the Premier League – but that was four years ago.
Now it is time for another Mancunian full-back to come to the fore. Demeaco Duhaney now has the chance to send a message to the Cowleys that he is ready to be their long-term solution at right-back.
Had injuries not robbed him of pre-season and a big chunk of the early parts of the campaign, Duhaney may well have had that opportunity sooner, much as Jaden Brown was given an extended chance to audition for left-back when Terence Kongolo proved not to be the answer on that side.
What we have seen of former Manchester City man Duhaney so far has been fleeting but mildly encouraging – 45 minutes on his debut against Wolves last season, 90
minutes in at the deep end at home to Leeds in December and 18 minutes off the bench against Wigan on Saturday.
That’s no time at all in which to form a proper opinion on Duhaney as a player, but there have been no major disasters, and against Wigan he at the very least brought a late injection of energy and verve that had been sadly lacking from the side up to that point.
The Cowleys will desperately want to see more of that against Forest on Sunday - and not just from Duhaney, whose application on the training pitch has drawn particular praise from Danny Cowley.
The player himself will know that he and other youth prospects will never get a better opportunity to step up into the first team and show they are ready and able to do a job at this level.
That means striking a happier medium between attack and defence than either Hadergjonaj or Simpson have managed.
Meanwhile, the club will be keen to see their controversially innovative academy restructure start paying the dividends that could well save them millions in the longer run.
With Championship clubs likely to have little to no money available in the transfer kitty, there couldn’t possibly be a better time for that to happen than right now.