Exclusive by Phil McNulty
Chief football writer |
Blackburn Rovers boss Graeme Souness has revealed how the irresistible spending power of Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich made it impossible to keep Damien Duff.
 Souness had no plans to sell Duff |
Souness was confident �17m winger Duff would be at Ewood Park at the start of the season - despite long-term serious interest from Liverpool and Manchester United.
But Souness told BBC Sport that the one factor Blackburn had not counted on in their planning was the whirlwind arrival of Russian billionaire Abramovich on the Premiership.
Souness admitted the sale of David Dunn to Birmingham and other summer departures were expected - but that Abramovich's intervention was a wild card.
Liverpool had tracked Duff for 12 months only to be priced out of the market and Manchester United were also interested - but Abramovich was not deterred by the �17m fee Blackburn had negotiated into his contract.
He said: "We knew for a long time we were making three changes, and that Keith Gillespie, Henning Berg and Stig Bjornebye would not be here.
"On top of that David Dunn and Damien Duff have gone so it's been quite a lively close season.
"We thought we would manage to hold on to Damien Duff - we were very confident about that.
"We knew about the clause in his contract pricing him at �17m and thought he would be staying.
"But we certainly couldn't foresee a Russian billionaire coming over the horizon to activate the release clause - we didn't see that one."
And Souness insists Blackburn were effectively left with no option other than to sell team-mate Dunn to Birmimgham in a �5.5m move.
"At the end of the season we offered David Dunn the opportunity for talks about a new contract and he said no.
"We asked him if he was prepared to sit down and discuss a new contract and he said no, which made our mind up that if we got a decent offer for him we would sell him."
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We certainly couldn't foresee a Russian billionaire coming over the horizon 
