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Derry City’s Michael Duffy celebrates(Image: INPHO\/Tom Maher)<\/p>\nMichael Duffy has had yet another outstanding season and has 12 goals so far in the League of Ireland and FAI Cup.Derry City’s Michael Duffy celebrates(Image: INPHO\/Tom Maher)<\/p>\n
Derry City boss Tiernan Lynch reckons Michael Duffy is \u201c100 percent\u201d the best player in the League of Ireland this year.<\/p>\n
And he reckons the 31-year-old Candystripes<\/a> star deserves to be rewarded for his outstanding ability with a long-overdue Ireland<\/a> call-up.<\/p>\n Duffy, capped by Northern Ireland<\/a> up to Under-21 level, and also the Republic<\/a> at Under-18s, received a senior Northern Ireland<\/a> call under Michael O\u2019Neill<\/a> in 2016 while at Celtic<\/a>.<\/p>\n He was never capped at the highest level and in 2018, in the middle of a dazzling spell at Dundalk<\/a>, he spoke of his desire to line out for Ireland<\/a>.<\/p>\n Encouraged by then boss Martin O\u2019Neill<\/a>, he set about the process of declaring – but delays in receiving his clearance meant that he wasn\u2019t in a position to answer Stephen Kenny\u2019s<\/a> call in late-2020.<\/p>\n FIFA finally granted his international transfer in February 2021, but a subsequent call never came.<\/p>\n According to Lynch, it\u2019s not too late to finally give Duffy the recognition he deserves, and something he said as far back as 2018 that he had his \u201cheart set on.\u201d<\/p>\n Duffy was key once again for the Candystripes in Sunday\u2019s 2-1 win against Shamrock Rovers – a result that moved them closer to securing second place in the Premier Division.<\/p>\n Lynch was asked if Duffy should be awarded Player of the Year, and he replied: \u201cIn my opinion, yeah, 100 percent.<\/p>\n \u201cI made a comment last week, I think Michael Duffy, along with one or two others, definitely should be in for a shout to be involved in the Irish squad. I stand by that.<\/p>\n \u201cI think there is a huge amount of talent in this league. I think it\u2019s a tremendous league, full of good players, full of good managers, and I think it probably needs a little more recognition on the national stage.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked why it hadn\u2019t happened yet for Duffy, he replied: \u201cI don\u2019t know, I\u2019ve never asked the question. I\u2019m probably biased on that and what I\u2019ve seen of him.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not going to be critical of any manager, I know how difficult it is and I know how difficult a job it must be for a national team manager.<\/p>\n \u201cBut working with Michael every day, I think there\u2019s more in him.\u201d<\/p>\n Lynch added: \u201cI think he\u2019s been excellent. When you talk about Michael Duffy you always get a smile on your face, because of how infectious the kid is.<\/p>\n \u201cHe is a top player, a top person. Every day is exactly the same to him – matchday, first day of training, last day of training, he\u2019s first on the pitch, he\u2019s last off the pitch, and he has had a massive, massive impact.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been great to see him back to where he belongs.\u201d<\/p>\n Click this link<\/a> or scan the QR code to receive the latest League of Ireland news and top stories from the Irish Mirror. If you don\u2019t like our community, you can check out any time you like. If you\u2019re curious, you can read our Privacy Notice<\/a>.<\/p>\n The same too can be said for Derry City, as they close in on second place thanks to Sunday\u2019s win over Rovers.<\/p>\n Lynch took over last winter after the Candystripes finished fourth in the Premier Division and lost to Drogheda United in the FAI Cup final.<\/p>\n Securing a return to Europe was the most immediate task – and Sunday\u2019s win did just that.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s more to come, according to their manager, who said: \u201cIt\u2019s not a successful season, but a progressive season.<\/p>\n \u201cA successful season is when you have got silverware in the cabinet, and I think that\u2019s how we have to behave at this football club and that has to be our mentality at this football club.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to be pushing to win league titles and we have to be pushing to win the cup, to be playing group stages in Europe.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s why we came into this club and that\u2019s what we want to achieve.<\/p>\n \u201cI came into this with my eyes wide open. It\u2019s definitely a massive club and probably a bigger club than I thought, if truth be told.<\/p>\n \u201cThe potential of this club is absolutely and utterly phenomenal. It\u2019s now my job from a football perspective to make sure we go and grab that with both hands and make sure we give them something to cheer about.<\/p>\n \u201cEuropean football is massive. I don\u2019t think anybody needs me to tell them that this is where we need to be.<\/p>\n \u201cBut the season is not over yet, we have another massive game, and our job and mentality has to be to try and finish second, and build on that next season.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Duffy has had yet another outstanding season and has 12 goals so far in the League of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5082,14646,65557,2538,61,60,2539,65561,65562,65560,43,65559,65558,57217,38384],"class_list":["post-106958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-celtic-fc","tag-derry-city","tag-derry-city-fc","tag-dundalk-fc","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-league-of-ireland","tag-martin-oneill","tag-martin-oneill-republic-of-ireland-manager","tag-michael-oneill","tag-news","tag-northern-ireland-football-team","tag-northern-ireland-national-football-team","tag-republic-of-ireland-national-football-team","tag-stephen-kenny"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0_loi-qr-codePNG.png\")
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