Damien Duff has blasted Roddy Collins for ‘an awful comment’ about Mipo Odubeko following Shelbourne’s derby win over Bohemians.
Former Gypsies manager Collins was a studio pundit for Virgin Media Television’s live coverage of the sold-out Tolka Park game on Friday night.
Striker Odubeko came off the bench midway through the second-half and, with 11 minutes left to play, won the game with the only goal of a tight contest. The toe-poked effort was Odubeko’s first goal since the second weekend of the season when he scored the winner away to Waterford.
Before that, he scored and impressed in the President’s Cup win over Drogheda United and looked like he might take the Premier Division by storm. But former West Ham man Odubeko, 22, has found it difficult to nail down a starting role in Duff’s team and the Shels boss knows he is frustrated.
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In his TV analysis after the game, manager turned pundit Collins said of Odubeko:: “He's probably one of the worst finishers I've seen in Irish football.” But Collins then praised other aspects of the striker’s game, adding: “However, I'd pick him every week because of his other attributes in the game.”
Duff was asked about Collins’ withering assessment of the former Ireland underage ace’s finishing in front of goal. He said: “I love Roddy but I think it’s a really poor comment, really poor. Especially about a young boy who has maybe been a bit lost at times, bouncing from club to club. We’ve given him that foundation to kick on his career. Hopefully that’s here, or really do well and go back to England. Here, it’s an awful comment. You need to do your homework better to come out with a big comment like that.”
Odubeko has put six points on the board for the champions after his winners against Bohemians and Wasterford.
Duff continued: “Against Waterford, it was a double movement in the box and a sidefoot finish into the bottom corner. Tonight, I need to watch it back, but it was a chop and toe poke. The only player I ever saw to score with toe pokes was Romario. He was one of the best strikers ever.
"A poor comment. I love Roddy but I think he’s let himself down there. Mipo has played a really big part in our season. I know he’d be slightly disappointed because I know he wants to play a bigger role. I’ve no doubt he’ll play a bigger role. But just to echo, it’s a poor comment, especially towards a young player who is trying to find his feet again.”
Duff hailed his players for how they controlled large parts of the derby win over Bohs and he is happy with how the champions have fared over the first series of games.
He said: “Second-half we ask for more gears, play higher up the pitch, control counter attacks. It’s probably not a nice word, but just to suffocate them and they did that.”
Champions Shels are third in the table, two points behind leaders Drogheda United, and Duff added: “It's obviously going to be a different season to last season.
“We came out of the traps last season. As I told the guys yesterday, to win the league this year you're going to have to win it differently. One thing you'll have to do is come out on top of the Dublin derbies and we did that tonight. The lads have been brilliant and we're only going to get better and better.”
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