IT’S SECOND TIME LUCKY

O’neill finally manages to seal Dean’s move to Potters after assistant Mckinlay’s departure

MICHAEL O’neill is delighted to welcome Dean Holden to Stoke City – and he may still add to his coaching team – as he tries to make the most of the talent emerging at the club.

Holden has arrived this week as O’neill’s new assistant manager, replacing Billy Mckinlay, with a task of helping fulfil the potential of prospects who have broken into the first-team picture over the last few months.

Harry Souttar, Nathan Collins and Tyrese Campbell have already become major figures while there are more on the periphery who are seen as key to the club’s success, particularly when hands are tied in the transfer market due to Financial Fair Play.

And Holden, pictured – who had seven months as Bristol City manager this season – is seen as a coach who can help their progress.

O’neill said: “I tried to bring Dean in last summer. We felt we needed another coach. Relative to numbers that other clubs have, our staff is a little bit small actually.

“I felt we needed another coach, particularly for the younger players coming up into the first team – Collins, Souttar, Campbell and all of them.

“I still think we need another one. We need to cater for those players because those players are our assets.

“We’re in a very short season and it’s very difficult to get as much work into those players as you would ideally like because of the game schedule, but Souttar has grown massively because he’s playing all the time. Nathan was getting to that as well.

“In a more normal season we will get more time to work on those players on more specific things and individually improve them so that they are players who can take the club to the next level.

“I believe in those players – if Nathan Collins was playing for someone else we wouldn’t be able to buy him, for example – so I felt we needed someone can help nurture them.

“Dean has a good track record of doing that at Bristol City, who have done that successfully. It’s something as a club we have to get better at.”

Holden started work at Stoke on Wednesday preparing for tomorrow’s visit of Preston North End and O’neill is glad to have him on board.

He said: “He had to take the chance when Bristol City offered him the job, of course he did, but when we sat down again he saw himself as a number two.

“He’s from the Manchester area so that was an easy one for him as well to get back up to this part and work in this vicinity and he knew the club inside out. “I just know how he thinks and his thought process about the game is very aligned to mine and he’s fitted in very well already.” Mckinlay had been one of O’neill’s first appointments back in late 2019, having briefly worked together for Northern Ireland and played together at Dundee United. O’neill said: “When you come from an international job, I couldn’t bring my staff with me because my staff all worked at other clubs.

“Andy (Cousins) was working at Man City at the time, Austin Macphee was working at Hearts, Jimmy Nicholl was working at Rangers, Steve Harper was working at Newcastle. It’s not feasible to bring them all to the club.

“Billy was someone I knew and had worked with before and had a good relationship with and I knew he would be good for where we were at that point; a club at the bottom of the league. He was someone who had worked at a good level. Primarily this was Billy’s first experience in the Championship.

“Over time, I felt we needed possibly a different approach. Billy has also had a