Post Relegation: Duff pledges future

Following his unlucky deflected own goal yesterday and a deflection from Friedal robbing him of the opener, a clearly upset Damien Duff spoke and pledged his immediate future to Newcastle. Again we appreciate Duff's attitude but the consideration for Newcastle's future, not his, is the most important.

Duff has hardly set the team alight this season, with nothing reminiscent of the Blackburn Rovers player. On £60k a week there is also the chance of getting 3 or 4 players in for the wages we are paying him. Duff said:

'I'm devastated. I don't know what words can describe the way I feel. I'm as loyal as they come and, whether the gaffer stays or goes, I'd love to try to get Newcastle back up.

If there's one man to get us back up it's Alan Shearer. I've loved working with him and it's been a proper club.

When it happened at Blackburn, I wasn't planning on seeing it again in my career. It's not a nice feeling. No disrespect to the Championship but Newcastle are too big a club to be down there. I plan on being straight back up after next season.

I'm a big man and I've been around for a while now, so I'm going to have to get over it. I'll be thinking about it for a long, long time but what can you do? That's football. You can't dwell on disappointments in your career. You have to move on.

I think he's been brilliant even though we haven't got the results to keep us up. It's the first time in a long while that this place has felt like a proper football club. Things are done right and it's been a breath of fresh air. It's just disappointing we couldn't stay up for him and the fans.'

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