‘I was running on anger’ \u2014 Duff open to managerial return after time away from the game<\/p>\n
Damien Duff has spoken about the toll managing Shelbourne took on him, before adding that a return to management could be on the cards.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Speaking on his punditry debut for Virgin Media ahead of the Dublin derby between Shamrock Rovers and Bohemians, the ex-Reds boss explained that he stepped away from the job as he had turned into a \u201cwild animal\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI won\u2019t lie to you Tommy, I\u2019ve probably slept a lot in the last 10 months, done a lot of boxing, watched a lot of football, a lot of school runs,” Duff said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOutside of that, not a lot. Listen, I\u2019m going over old ground but I needed to do what I did. I needed to slow down before I quicken up again. I needed to put myself first for once before the football club.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was probably a bit of me that didn\u2019t like who I was becoming at times. I was fighting the world \u2013 I was angry, running on anger and highly emotional.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it was something I felt I had to do to get Shelbourne back to the top and I felt if we didn\u2019t do that we wouldn\u2019t have won the league. I absolutely stand over that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWorrying for me is, when I get back in would I be the same again? Probably.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not trying to embarrass Brian [Kerr] but he rang me a couple of days afterwards. Firstly, to see how I was but also to say that I probably stopped being Damien Duff.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBelieve it or not, I\u2019m a softly-spoken guy, a bit of a mammy\u2019s boy and there were times I turned into a bit of a wild animal, which isn\u2019t me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
On the same panel, ex-Ireland boss Brian Kerr said that Irish football needs Duff working in some capacity within the international set-up.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When asked about the prospects of him managing in the League of Ireland again, the 47-year-old added:\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I don’t think they’d want me. I’ve fallen out with every club, every fanbase, the Camac down at Pat’s, the Jodi Stand, the whole of Tallaght, the two managers tonight.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I’m not sure where would welcome me, but listen, Shelbourne was an amazing time in my life. But here, never say never.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“It’s a special place for me but they have moved on \u2013 they’ve a wonderful manager, world-class coach and you’re soon forgotten about in this game.”\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘I was running on anger’ \u2014 Duff open to managerial return after time away from the game Damien…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[14645,14646,14640,2538,16488,61,60,43,11113,25201,14644,16489,6513],"class_list":{"0":"post-403965","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-bohemian-fc","9":"tag-derry-city","10":"tag-drogheda-united-fc","11":"tag-dundalk-fc","12":"tag-galway-united-fc","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-shamrock-rovers","17":"tag-shelbourne","18":"tag-sligo-rovers","19":"tag-st-patricks-athletic-fc","20":"tag-waterford"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}