Souness still hopes to keep Duff

While Damien Duff and his advisers began talks with Chelsea in London yesterday over a proposed £17 million transfer from Blackburn Rovers his current manager, Graeme Souness, was clinging to the hope the player would reject the move and join the Rovers squad for their 10-day training camp in the US.

Whether that happens remains to be seen - there was no sign of white smoke billowing from Stamford Bridge last night - but if Duff turned down the move it is thought he would be declining an offer of £70,000-a-week, the wages Chelsea are said to be willing to pay the Republic of Ireland international.

"I'm sure he'll be offered a great deal of money to go there, but we still hope he'll be with us this year," said Souness, speaking from Washington. "We hope that they can't come to an agreement and he'll be flying out here, but we'll have to wait and see. It's going to be a difficult decision for Damien and I can understand it if he chooses to go to Chelsea because right now Chelsea are the big team in the world in terms of spending money."

"We may have agreed a fee, but the deal's far from a foregone conclusion as far as we are concerned," stressed Blackburn chief executive John Williams. "There's a lot of water still to go under the bridge. We're being quite vociferous about proceedings because we feel it's in the best interests of the fans, but at the moment the balance has swung to Chelsea."

Williams acknowledged the irony that less than 10 years ago Blackburn, then financed by Jack Walker, were the "Chelsea" of the Premiership, able to secure the signings of players such as Alan Shearer and Chris Sutton by offering wages none of their rivals could match.

"People have likened Chelsea's spending spree to the very early years of Jack," he said. "There are tremendous parallels, though the volumes of money have gone up considerably since then. It would appear things move on and there's been a major change to the game."

In the absence of hard news on the negotiations, or a genuine insight into Duff's thoughts about a move to London, the archives were plundered yesterday. The player was quoted by the London Evening Standard as describing the fee as "a ridiculous price on my head", a remark he actually first made in May.

He was also quoted yesterday as saying "everyone wants to play in the Champions League" - a comment that was interpreted as meaning his mind was made up, he was Chelsea-bound. That precise quote, though, first appeared in the Observer during last summer's World Cup, the complete version concluding: "But I like being at Blackburn and I haven't thought about leaving."

Souness will hope Duff still feels the same way, but acknowledges the lure of that £70,000-a-week pay-packet and Champions League football, could prove too much to resist.

Elsewhere BBC Sport persisted with their line Duff is hankering after a move to Manchester United. "We understand Duff would need major persuasion to leave the north and move to Stamford Bridge, with Manchester United still interested and Alex Ferguson remaining a long-term admirer of the winger," they said.

There were, though, no official moves on that front yesterday, but rumours of the imminent collapse of Ronaldinho's proposed move to United heightened speculation, yet further, that Ferguson would turn his attention, and spare cash, to the pursuit of Duff.

That's all talk, for now, and as it stands Chelsea is the only club to have earned the right to speak to Duff by offering Blackburn the required £17 million fee. That, then, means the London club remains the player's most likely destination.