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John O’Shea explains why he left Stoke City after sole season
John O’Shea decided to step away from Stoke City so he could dedicate time to scouting and building relationships for Republic of Ireland, he has explained.
The 42-year-old former Manchester United defender has been making his first steps as a coach and dovetailed commitments with Ireland under-21s by joining Stoke last summer. He was appointed by Michael O’Neill but stayed to work alongside Alex Neil as the club finished 16th in the Championship.
He was called up to help Stephen Kenny at Ireland senior level in March and, after a couple of months juggling both, has opted to concentrate on the international side.
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“It will give me a chance to get around and build up relationships a lot more with all the players in the squad,” he told the 42. “To get around to see them playing and maybe in training more too at their club levels. But mainly seeing them in matches – that would be the big thing. I spoke to Stephen about it. It was something I had been thinking about for a little bit.
“Stoke is a fantastic club so it wasn’t an easy decision but it was something I felt at the time was going to be the right thing to do for me. To really focus on international games.”
He added to the Irish Independent: “Just the commitments in terms of doing the Stoke job and the Irish job as well, it’s about getting a bit more balance in terms of family life too and most importantly going 100 per cent at it with the Ireland job as well, that was the main thinking behind it.
“When I experienced the intensity of the nine-day camp (in March) and going back into the club scene with its demands, it was about getting the balance right to ensure I could fully focus on the one role.”
O’Shea has been linked with the managerial vacancy at former club Reading, who have been relegated to League One.
Be he said: “I told Stephen there’d only be a couple of jobs that I would walk away for. No, in all seriousness I’m very committed to the Irish stuff and that’s what I’ll be doing.
“It’s the Irish senior team. That’s the simple reason why it won over, wanting to commit to that, for the foreseeable future. It’s as simple as that. Obviously I’d done quite a bit on the club side of things and I felt it was a good time to focus all the energy onto the Irish team.”
Neil now has assistant Martin Canning and keeper coach Jonathan Gould in his backroom team at Stoke. Dean Holden left shortly after O’Neill and Rory Delap departed in January.
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