PHEW! What a relief! After weeks of uncertainty and thoughts of 'will he or won't he?' Damien Duff now looks set to sign a new deal with the club.

And I, for one, will be absolutely delighted to see him put pen to paper because, if we want to move forward as a club, then it's absolutely vital that we have players like Duffer on board.

When push comes to shove, there are not too many players like him around and you only have to look at the clubs who have made enquiries about him to realise just what a special talent he is.

It's great for someone like me to know we have an outlet like that in the side.

The one thing which makes him stand out from the rest is the way he's so direct and you always feel as though he is going to beat his man.

Sometimes with players of his ilk, a lot of what they do looks good for the cameras but then there's no end product.

But with Duffer that is simply not the case because he almost always either produces a cross or an attempt at goal himself.

The pair of us have grown up at this club from our early days in the Youth team together.

And to finally see him getting the acclaim he deserves is hugely satisfying because I always knew he was destined for great things.

Once again, I thought he was head and shoulders above the rest of us in our game against Sunderland on Saturday.

But the more I reflect on that match as a whole, the more I look on it as two points lost rather than one gained.

Sunderland came with a gameplan to defend which meant it probably wasn't the greatest of spectacles to watch from our fans' point of view.

But, despite all our best attempts to break them down on the day, we couldn't quite fashion the kind of opening Coley or Yorkie required to finish them off.

Nevertheless, from what I've seen of those two so far I'm convinced they'll score a sack full of goals for us this season.

We know what they are capable of together after what they achieved at Manchester United and you don't play for a club of that stature unless you are top, top quality.

Anyway, back to the subject of Damiens and I'm looking forward to seeing Damien Johnson this weekend when we make the trip to Birmingham. Jonty's a cracking lad and he was slightly unlucky that things didn't work out better for him at Ewood because he never let anyone down whenever he got a chance in the first team.

However, switching clubs is all part and parcel of football and I'm sure he will make a success of his move to St Andrews.

In the meantime, though, let's hope he doesn't come back to haunt us tomorrow....