‘Workaholic’ Duff making most of Celtic opportunity
Former Ireland star has earned respect of players in Lennon’s first-team squad
THERE is a catchphrase that has stuck for Damien Duff since he was promoted to first team duties at Celtic following Brendan Rodgers’ departure to Leicester City in February. “You’ll get worse than that on a Saturday.” In one of his early sessions as firstteam coach after making the step up from Reserve manager, Duff refereed a practice game at the club’s Lennoxtown training base. He blew for a decision in one team’s favour, which then led to uproar from the opposition, and Duff simply roared back: “You’ll get worse than that on a Saturday.”
He has retained referring duties during training ever since and now, whenever he makes a call that a team doesn’t agree with, those feeling hard done by will simply shout those eight words back at him: “You’ll get worse than that on a Saturday.”
There are two sides to Duff around Lennoxtown, but he is always up front. Some players joke with him that they never see him smile or have a laugh. Others, like captain Scott Brown, have grown close and get on well, their dry, quick-witted humour a perfect match.
The Dubliner is described as someone who “doesn’t f**k about” when it comes to working. On the training pitch, where Neil Lennon oversees sessions driven by assistant John Kennedy – a loyal former player who remained at the club when Rodgers headed south to the Premier League – Duff is an authoritative, respected figure.
Survived
And he has not survived over the last 10 months because of his achievements as a player. Indeed, a couple of the foreign stars at the club were unaware of who he was when they first saw him taking part in a crossing and finishing drill – something he will often finish sessions with – at the beginning of his tenure.
Impressed by his ability, the talk around the dressing-room was of this impressive new coach. It was only when some of the more senior players felt the need to tell them about his career and list some of the former Chelsea winger’s honours, explaining also how he was one of the first major signings of the Roman Abramovich era, that the penny dropped.
“Oh, Duff! Duff!”
Off the pitch, too, he is just as diligent and when training “on the grass” finishes – usually at midday with sessions starting at 10.30 and players required to arrive by
9am - Duff can be seen with his head buried in a tablet or a laptop in the “analysis hub” near the manager and coaches’ offices on the second floor. Players who want to talk through tactics or elements of their individual game will go to him for clips and advice. Mikey Johnstone, an exciting 20-year-old forward, is someone who has emerged and worked closely with Duff.
Johnstone, like his team-mates, know that Duff is always there; he has been described as a “workaholic” whose car never seems to leave the car park.
It is something that is also said of Kennedy, Lennon’s assistant and right-hand man. The 36-year-old came through the ranks at the club but was forced to retire because of a knee injury a decade ago. When Rodgers was in charge, Kennedy was the conduit between him and the players. They were keen for him to stay on more than anyone else, fearing it would be a disaster if he joined Kolo Toure by jumping ship along with Rodgers. Instead, Kennedy maintained a sense of much-needed stability at the club and there is a chemistry between staff and players which Lennon, the leader and overseer, has cultivated even further. Kennedy, a giant of a man who would frighten even the most haggard Glaswegian bouncer, is the one figure even captain Brown would bow to.
The pair get on well and it’s the captain, unsurprisingly, who is the dominant personality within the dressing-room. It is Brown, for example, who is responsible for collecting fines from players who break the ground rules at Lennoxtown.
Any player who uses their phone in certain areas must pay £50. English must also be spoken – again £50 is the penalty for those found in breach – with the aim to bring players together and help them communicate and get to know each other. One beneficiary of this has been 21-year-old forward Odsonne Édouard, who arrived on loan from Paris Saint-Germain in 2017 with barely any English but is now fluent.
Doubled
Fines are doubled on match-days with music allowed to be played on the bus but making or receiving phone calls – unless an emergency – is prohibited.
These are just some of the factors for why every domestic Scottish trophy available over the past three seasons currently resides at Celtic Park.
The ‘treble Treble’ winners on course to ensure that they remain there for an incredible fourth successive year, with tomorrow’s League Cup final against Rangers the first piece of silverware up for grabs in 2019/’20.
It could also prove to be the catalyst for what happens next in a campaign that is as evenly matched at any stage this decade – one which has been dominated by the Hoops.
Lennon’s side edged themselves two points clear at the top of the league table on Wednesday night courtesy of
Brown’s dramatic injury-time winner at home to Hamilton Academical.
It may have been their 11th win in a row in all competitions but Steven Gerrard’s men have still been keeping pace, until a draw with Aberdeen saw them slip slightly adrift.
Regardless, this now looks like a title race that will go to down to the wire and, while from the outside that may suggest even more of an emphasis on victory at Hampden Park tomorrow afternoon, the feeling within the Celtic dressing-room is one of calm.
Indeed, before Wednesday’s late win over Hamilton, some of the main concerns among the players relating to tomorrow’s game was whether they would be getting suits for the occasion.
Almost everything else is already taken care of, including the individual pillows and mattresses for each player that the club make sure are in place for their arrival at the team hotel the night before every away game.
That will be no different tonight, even if the build-up to this Old Firm will be that more intense. BT Sport, for example, will broadcast nine hours of coverage throughout the day; going on air at 9am for the 3pm kick-off with a further three hours of analysis and reaction.
Yet Celtic players already know that, win, lose or draw, they are scheduled to report for training as usual at 9am on Monday, as attention quickly turns to their final Europa League group stage game away to Cluj in Romania.
Duff, you can be sure, will be there waiting with his whistle and laptop.