5 players from promoted teams who have been in fine form
With a quarter of the 2017/18 Premier League season over, the three teams promoted from Championship last season have all started the campaign on a good note, with each of them competitively challenging for a top-half spot in the league table.
While old EPL regulars Newcastle have done well under Rafael Benitez, the new boys Brighton and Huddersfield have impressed as well. David Wagner’s Huddersfield have even managed a shock 2-1 win over the strong Manchester United already and will look to unsettle more top teams in the future.
Each of the three teams have invested to improve the squad quality to compete in the much stronger Premier League after the promotion from Championship. Incomings like Steve Mounie (Huddersfield), Pascal Gross (Brighton) and Mikel Merino (Newcastle) have improved their sides and made an impact already. However, some of the existing players have also raised their games to excel in the top division of English division.
We look at five players from the promoted teams, who played for their current teams in the Championship last season, and have a good start to their EPL season.
5. Shane Duffy (Brighton & Hove Albion)
The Irish centre-back joined the Seagulls in August 2016 as their then-record transfer signing (for £4 million) from Blackburn Rovers and helped his new club to promotion to the Premier League in the same season.
Duffy had been tipped to be successful in the Premier League when he joined Everton as a teenager, but had to take the difficult route of playing for lower league clubs like Yeovil Town, Blackburn Rovers and Scunthorpe United, before getting a chance to establish himself as a regular in the EPL.
The 25-year-old, who has cemented his spot in the setup of the Irish national team, has been central to Brighton’s impressive start to the campaign, especially defensively. He has formed a solid centre-back partnership with Lewis Dunk, which hasn’t gone unnoticed by the experts, with Jamie Carragher commenting,
“Vital in the air, that's Duffy, he's more of the commanding one in the air, a young player that came through at Everton. We don't see enough of this in the Premier League now, we want a lot more from our centre-backs, that's the way the game is going, but there's nothing better for me in the role that I played to see defenders defend like this, and want to defend. Doing everything they can to stop that ball going into the back of the net.”