After a career spanning some two decades, Damien Duff announced his retirement from soccer at the end of 2015.
He finished his career with 100 caps and eight goals in an Irish jersey as well as Premier League spells at Blackburn Rovers, Chelsea, Newcastle United and Fulham. He also spent some time with Melbourne City before concluding his career at Shamrock Rovers.
And now that he has consigned himself to retirement, the Ballyboden man has any number of projects he can get involved in. One activity he has sampled so far is punditry, and speaking to Ger Gilroy and Nathan Murphy on Off The Ball, Duff spoke about how it went for him.
According to Duff, the life of a pundit was never close to his radar during his playing days and he feels almost like a hypocrite to be sampling it now.
Talking now with Damien Duff about working with Souness, Dalglish, Ranieiri and Mourinho pic.twitter.com/1hXa2mbmW2
— Off The Ball (@offtheball) March 12, 2016
"It was a bit rich coming from me. I used to have the craic with Keano (Robbie) down the back of the bus and I use to say 'shoot me if I ever become a pundit.' I'm waiting to hear from him, he's probably disgusted. I never envisaged myself doing it but I'd love to do it again."
And when pressed to pick his favourite pundit, Duff elected to pick a man who also has roots in Newcastle.
"My number one by a mile would be Graeme Souness. I've always liked him, obviously I worked with him so I might be a bit bias but he just tells it how it is and simple as that."
"He brought me on as a player. I went on to Chelsea and won two leagues there so I have fond memories of him. He looked after me."
He also spoke about the brief time he spent playing as a full back in rugby as a teenager.
"I thought I was pretty good but it was all getting a bit too tough for me. I probably wasn't the bravest of players for getting into tackles so I went back to football which was always gonna happen. I love the game."
