O’SHEA HAS GOOD WILL BEHIND HIM
WILL SMALLBONE has revealed that the entire Irish dressing room is fully behind caretaker boss John O’shea.
With the FAI dithering over what to do next, O’shea has stepped up to fill the void left by Stephen Kenny’s departure last November. And while officially the FAI have stated that the former Manchester United star is only in the hotseat for one more game – tomorrow’s friendly against Switzerland – they said something similar about the new women’s national team boss, Eileen Gleeson.
She, too, started on an interim basis, won six games in a row, and was then handed a permanent contract.
Now O’shea is being tipped to step up from caretaker to full-time boss after an impressive draw against world No4 ranked side, Belgium, on Saturday.
Certainly he has won over the players.
Midfielder Smallbone said: “No matter who is in charge you will give your all for them and with John being the person and the man he is, everybody has a huge amount of respect for him.
“I can’t speak highly enough of him throughout my whole career, not just this past week but for everything he has done for me.
He’s been brilliant and all the lads have got a huge amount of respect for him.”
Asked if he would mind if O’shea became permanent boss, Smallbone replied: “No, obviously not.
“Like, it’s only one game (that O’shea has had in charge) but it has been very positive this week and hopefully we can go on Tuesday and get a positive result for him. He’s a good man manager and has got an abundance of experience from his playing days.
“He was able to get that across in a managerial way which is very important.
“When you hear from different managers that haven’t maybe been there or played, it’s different to when you’d speak to a John O’shea that has been there at the top level for many years and who knows exactly what you guys are going through.
“I have known John a while now, working with him with the Under 21s and also with Stoke. I have an enormous amount of respect for him and I know the rest of the lads do too. Him as manager, I think he has been brilliant this week.
“On another day we could come away with a win against a top nation. All around, it was a positive performance.”
Smallbone was also full of praise for O’shea’s backroom team, coaches Paddy Mccarthy and
Glenn Whelan, and former boss, Brian Kerr, who is back involved again as a technical advisor to O’shea.
The midfielder said: “John was very good at getting his message across; he has a very good (backroom) team in place, Paddy and Glenn, and with Brian there, too, he had an older head to lean on.
“It has been a very good balance so far.”
Ireland’s dismal Euros campaign saw them lost six out of eight matches, their two wins coming against Gibraltar.
Knowing they needed to stop the rot with a result on Saturday, Smallbone was upbeat about 2024 being a better year.
“This is a new year and there are new possibilities there for us. What have we got to lose?
“We have to believe we can beat these nations and on another day we could have done just that.”