Chelsea's new manager, Jose Mourinho, said yesterday he is hoping a strong showing by Damien Duff in Ireland's friendly international against Bulgaria will help the Dubliner to overcome what the coach described yesterday as the player's "mental competitive block" during the club's recent preparations for the new season.
Even with his competition for the slot on Chelsea's left flank, Arjen Robben, ruled out of yesterday's Premiership encounter with Manchester United by injury, the Dubliner failed even to make the bench in his club's league opener.
After the game, which Chelsea won 1-0, Mourinho was asked about the Irishman's absence and said, "Duff isn't ready after the shoulder problem. He has been selected for the Republic. I don't think he's ready for that either but maybe playing for them will help him to overcome the mental competitive block. I know he's a very important player for them."
The former Porto boss didn't elaborate but it seems that he is concerned that the gifted winger is finding it hard to reproduce his former competitiveness in the wake of a shoulder injury that severely disrupted his first season at Stamford Bridge and finally forced him to undergo surgery towards the end of the campaign.
Given Robbie Keane's absence this week, the news that Duff will be available to him for Wednesday's game will be welcome to Brian Kerr even if, as his coach in England clearly feels, the 25-year-old is not yet 100 per cent.
In other areas, however, the manager looks set to be well covered, as his insistence that Wednesday's game marks an important step in his final preparations for the new World Cup campaign seems to have prompted a strong turnout from his players, 17 of whom had turned up for the opening training session of the week, while another four were due in last night.
Definitely out of the game are Charlton's Matt Holland and Andy O'Brien of Newcastle United. Holland limped out of Saturday's defeat by Bolton early on and is due to have a scan on his ankle today. It is believed he has sustained ligament damage and could be a doubt for next month's qualifiers against Cyprus and Switzerland.
O'Brien was one of the many players at Newcastle to come down with conjunctivitis recently and the central defender has not trained for two weeks. It was hoped his condition would have improved sufficiently to allow him to travel but in the end fears that other players in the Ireland squad might develop the problem after coming into contact with him killed off any chance of him coming to Dublin.
David Connolly, Stephen Carr and Steve Finnan, meanwhile, all sat out yesterday afternoon's training session after picking up minor knocks in club games but all look likely to be available for Wednesday. Also in are Manchester United's three Irish players, Roy Keane, Liam Miller and John O'Shea, who, their club said after the game in London, had flown out together to report for international duty.
Kerr said yesterday he was also expecting Kevin Kilbane to arrive although only after the Everton midfielder had two stitches after sustaining a foot injury during yesterday's 4-1 defeat by Arsenal.
