Chelsea closer to right price for Duff

Soccer: So then, is it to be Damien Duffski of Chelski fame? Or will Manchester United sell Juan Sebastian Veron to the London club to fund the purchase of Duff as, speculation has it, Alex Ferguson craves?

Are Liverpool still in the hunt, or has the signing of Harry Kewell ended their interest - or, more to the point, has the money run dry at Anfield? Or will, as Blackburn Rovers manager Graeme Souness hopes, Duff decide to stay where he is, at least for now?

Yesterday's developments answered none of the above riddles, but Chelsea did inch ever closer to offering Blackburn the £17.5 million fee that would trigger the release clause in Duff's contract - assuming Duff wants to be released. So far the player has said nothing, so none of the speculators is any the wiser.

If he opts for a move to London, Duff will become the most expensive Republic of Ireland player in history, overtaking his pal Robbie Keane in the all-time costliest Irish transfer list - Keane's current Irish record stands at £13 million, the fee Inter Milan paid Coventry City three years ago.

After initially making bids of £13 million and £15 million, both of which were rejected by Blackburn, Chelsea faxed an improved offer of £16 million to Ewood Park yesterday. That, too, was rejected, prompting Chelsea, according to the London Evening Standard, to make a fourth bid of £17 million by telephone.

This offer, however, is reported to have included "add-ons", meaning Blackburn would only receive that sum after a certain number of first team appearances by Duff at Stamford Bridge. These "add-ons", then, entitled the club to reject the bid, but chief executive John Williams conceded that the offer would at least be discussed at board level at the Lancashire club.

"It is a very substantial offer in the current climate, but it still falls short of what we require," Williams told the Lancashire Evening Telegraph. "However, the whole issue is of great significance to the club and I am rightly and properly duty bound to discuss this with not only my colleagues on the board but the club's major shareholders in Jersey as well.

"Even if Chelsea did get to the figure negotiated in his contract then we would hope Damien would want to stay with us," he added.

"There's a massive financial upside to selling him, which can never be underestimated in the post-Jack Walker era," he said, in reference to the club's late benefactor, "but our football instinct currently prevails and we don't want him to go.

"We know Chelsea can entice Damien with the lure of Champions League football but we want him to stay here and try and achieve that with us."

Souness expressed similar sentiments. "It's a very simple situation, Damien has a clause in his contract which triggers the possibility of him going if he wants to, but we are desperate to hold onto him. We made our case plain that we would like to keep him here because we entered a new contract with him a year ago on improved terms.

"We rejected another offer from Chelsea at lunchtime because it didn't come up to the requirements we need or the requirements needed to trigger the clause in Damien's contract.

"Damien is a very special player," said Souness, "and I can only repeat that we have no intention of selling him. Our intention is to keep him and make sure he's here next season."

Spare a thought in all of this for Chelsea's England midfielder Frank Lampard. Yesterday he told the Daily Express that he had no worries about who arrived at Stamford Bridge this summer, that he would happily fight for his place in the team and was confident he would win the battle. That's all well and good, until you look through Abramovich's alleged wish-list of midfielders: Duff, Geremi, Veron, Edgar Davids, Patrick Vieira, Steven Gerrard, Jay-Jay Okocha and Joe Cole. There are some battles even Frank Lampard can't win.

Cardiff City's interest in signing Gary Doherty from Tottenham Hotspur has, for now, cooled after the Premiership club put a £1.2 million price tag on the Republic of Ireland international, twice the Welsh club's valuation of the player.