Reserves & Youth NEWS

Darby ready to step up

Published by fiz on November 17, 2008

Gary Ablett insists Stephen Darby will be ready if and when the chance comes for him to fill in the void at right-back.

Philipp Degen’s injury has opened the door for the reserves team skipper to show he has what it takes to play in the first team.

Degen suffered a metatarsal injury during the 4-2 defeat to Spurs and was replaced by Darby.

“We were delighted for Stephen when he made his first team debut,” Ablett told the offish site.

“He is a player who gives every single thing he’s got every day of the week. He fully deserved his chance and for the 10 minutes he was on the field at Tottenham I thought he did particularly well.

“He was calm and composed and it’s now up to the boss to see what happens now. Hopefully that little cameo at Spurs will show him that Stephen is someone he can rely on if he needs to.

“Stephen is Mr Consistency and has been our captain now for a over a year and fully deserves it.

“He always leads by example and with Philipp Degen’s unfortunate injury hopefully this might give Stephen a chance to show the manager what he can do.”

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