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Writer's pictureThe Rams Review Podcast

Who is Bobby Duncan?

According to several sources, it appears that Derby County are close to signing young striker Bobby Duncan on a three year contract from Fiorentina.


Who is Bobby Duncan? We spoke with our Fiorentina friends Viola Nation to find out more about the young Englishman!


What type of player is Bobby Duncan?

Bobby Duncan's a bit hard to judge for Fiorentina fans, as he hasn't even made the bench for the senior team this year and made just 12 appearances for the Primavera (U19s). He was generally pretty good for the youngsters, notching four goals and assist in 1,004 minutes, but those numbers may seem a little bit low.

That's really the crux of the matter: he seems to have had bit of a falling out with well-respected Primavera coach Emiliano Bigica and pretty much vanished for two months. There was no mention of injuries or anything, so it seems to be that he was either dropped completely or on strike. He did return at the tail end of the season, but it's pretty clear at this point that his future isn't in Florence.

It's too bad for us, because he's undeniably a talented player. His movement is sharp, his finishing is opportunistic, and he's very good at holding off a defender before turning and shooting. His linkup play needs some work and he's not much of a threat in the air, but he's got the tools to be a very effective striker.


How has he coped with moving to Italy and Serie A?


Most fans were more curious than excited about Duncan when he arrived. Nobody really expected him to break into the first team for Fiorentina. After all, he was moving to a new country, learning a new language in a new league famous for its focus on tactics, and hadn't ever come close to the Premier League. That was always going to be a massive adjustment for anyone, let alone a teenager who'd never been all that far from home. He seemed to struggle with fitting in, spending most of his spare time in front of a PlayStation. That's obviously not a problem in and of itself but does show that he wasn't very interested in putting himself out there.


Do you think he has the tools and ability to succeed back in England with Derby?


Whether or not he will seems to be mostly up to him. While he is himself an extraordinarily soft-spoken and polite young man (we interviewed him at the start of last season and he was as nice as he could be), it feels like someone's giving him some really bad advice.


He still employs Saif Rubie as his agent, which isn't ideal. You may recall Rubie as the guy who forced a move away from Manchester City and Liverpool in successive years because his teenage client wasn't getting first-team action, so it's not hard to imagine him leading Bobby astray again. Rubie, by the way, also has a lengthy history of pretty despicable comments about the LGBTQ+ community and generally seems like a scumbag of the lowest order.


As previously mentioned, he definitely has the tools to succeed for Derby. The real question is whether he has the patience to sit on the bench, to develop, to do the hard and invisible work that creates great players, or if he wants to be handed the 9 shirt from Day One. You can't blame him for his struggles to fit in (he's a kid and someone seems to be filling his head full of foolishness) but you have to worry that, back in England where he speaks the language and has more ability to disrupt things, he'll continue malingering rather than keeping his head down and putting in the hours. All of us at Viola Nation are certainly hoping he succeeds, as it was a brave step to move to Italy (even if it ended up failing), but you've got to worry about who's in his ear more than anything else, and that's a real headache for any club. Whether it outweighs his ability is the real question.


He's very promising but raw. He never got a sniff at the first team and feuded with the U19 boss en route to getting dropped for two months. Has an absolute bell end of an agent he probably needs to fire.



Viola Nation posts news, thoughts, analysis, and stupid jokes about Fiorentina. You can follow them here! You can see all the awesome work there do on their website: https://www.violanation.com/





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