Following an injury to Phil Jagielka – David Moyes’ Everton have recalled defender Shane Duffy from his loan spell with Scunthorpe United.
This is a bitter blow to the Iron, having won their first game in over 2 months on Monday – and with the Derry born Republic of Ireland U/21 international having been a crucial part of that.
The 20 year old centre-half has played 19 games for Scunny so far during his loan spell for us, and managed to get on the score-sheet during the win over Tranmere back in October.
Despite this – the Iron remain on record “hopeful” of renewing the Irishman’s loan. It is also not known as to how serious Jagielka’s injury for the Toffees is.
Shane will thus be back in time for their FA Cup clash with Tamworth at the weekend – although don’t be surprised if bigger clubs than the Iron become interested in him if Everton do make him available for loan later this season.
This move is expected to have big repercussions for the Iron defensively – and it is probably just a big relief that Paul Reid is slowly coming back to match fitness.
It is hoped that Reidy will thus be fit for the next Iron’s league game – which will be his first trip back to Essex to see Scunthorpe take on his former club Colchester United a week on Saturday.
Depending on what assurances Knilly & co have recieved from Everton: we might not see him back any time soon.
And whilst Shane Duffy on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/#!/ShaneDuffy34 – placed on record his gratitude to everyone at the club, and said that he could be “back in weeks”, this is unlikely to quell all fears from fans of Iron.
So this is almost certainly, in the short term at least, keep Michael Nelson at the club: no matter how much, (and this has become abundantly obvious), that Alan Knill would like to get him off the wage bill and heading away from Glanford Park towards the motorway.
Frankly, they may even need to sign a defender on loan for numbers’ sake – and make that 2 if Knill still harbours serious desires to see the ex-Norwich skipper head away from North Lincolnshire this January.
We’ll just have to wait and see – but this is certainly a development that Scunny could have done without…
But nonetheless: best of luck to Shane Duffy back at Goodison Park, and hope to see you back here at Scunthorpe in no time at all!
Any Old Iron 