THE ENGLISH FOOTBALL leagues are hardly buckling beneath the weight of Irish managers at the moment, which makes Alan Sheehan’s quiet rise at Swansea all the more remarkable.
Athlone-born Sheehan is in interim charge of Swansea at the moment, with the brief to steer the club away from any Championship relegation anxieties. Early results has seen him already take a giant stride in that direction, and Sheehan is now understood to be a major contender for the job on a permanent basis.
Sheehan is only 38, but is regarded as a highly ambitious coach and is now on the cusp of a landing a major opportunity.
Though capped only to U21 level for Ireland, Sheehan had a lengthy playing career in England’s lower leagues, playing more than 400 games across a near-20 year career.
Sheehan grew up in Coosan, Athlone, and having played for Belvedere in Dublin, he was signed by Leicester City as a teenager. This provided a spark of inspiration for a younger neighbour four doors’ down.
“The kickabouts in the garden, there would have been a bit of shin hacking, we always had great craic,” Irish rugby international Robbie Henshaw told The 42 in 2017.
“We always admired the way he played and we admired what he was doing as a young teenager across the water and making a living out of it. That did drive us a little bit, in terms of being ambitious.”
Advertisement
Sheehan playing for the Irish U21s in 2005. INPHO
INPHO
A left-back and set-piece specialist, Sheehan couldn’t quite establish himself as a first-team regular at Leicester, and bounced about on loan spells between permanent moves to League One Leeds and Swindon, before finding the ground steadier beneath his feet at Notts County, for whom he played more than 100 league games and earned the captaincy. He left the club at the end of his first season as captain, however, and further nomadic League One years were in store before he dropped down a division to join Luton Town, persuaded by the vision sold by manager Nathan Jones.
“The reason I came to Luton was because the manager, he had a plan. I believed in the plan and everything he’s told us is gradually coming true,” Sheehan told The 42 after Luton secured promotion.
Sheehan completed his Uefa A Licence while at Luton, and returned to the club to work on Jones’ coaching staff after he retired from playing.
“He probably has aspirations of being a manager but he has a lot of development to go yet, a lot of learning because of the way we work, we’re quite thorough, so it is a good education for him,” said Jones upon Sheehan’s appointment.
“We want to educate him to a good level so that he has choices in the future, that is what we do.”
Jones whisked Sheehan with him to Premier League Southampton in 2022, for what proved to be a brief, ill-fated, and headline-grabbing spell in charge. While Jones has re-surfaced at Charlton, Sheehan went his own way. When Luton’s chief operation officer Paul Watson moved to take up a role as sporting director at Swansea City, he installed Sheehan as a first-team coach.
Generally in football, a sporting director is hired before a first-team manager, but Swansea did things in the reverse order: Watson was announced four days after Michael Duff was appointed as successor to Russell Martin.
Duff didn’t even last six months in the job, with fans in revolt at his dowdy style of play. Swansea have prized their possession-centred approach ever since John Toshack developed “the Swansea Way” when he took charge of the club in the 1970s as player-manager, improbably leading them from the fourth-tier to the top flight.
That style was refurbished in recent years, first with Roberto Martinez, most famously with Brendan Rodgers and Michael Laudrup in the Premier League, and most recently with Russell Martin in the Championship.
Sheehan took interim charge after Duff’s exit, and reverted to his previous role when the club hired Luke Williams as Duff’s permanent successor. Williams was Martin’s assistant at Swansea, and so promised a return to the club’s style of play. But having steered the club away from relegation last season, Williams ran into trouble this time around, and was sacked last month after a run of seven defeats in nine games.
Sheehan is now in interim charge again, and has made a significant early impact, beating playoff-chasing Blackburn 3-0 before drawing 0-0 away to Preston. The results have lifted Swansea to 14th, 10 points clear of the relegation zone. Sheehan has been told his interim spell will extend to the end of the March international break, and he is understood to be in pole position to land the job full-time.
While Watson has left the club, Sheehan is understood to have a strong relationship with new Swansea owner and chairman Andy Coleman, an Irish-American investor who also owns a part-stake in MLS side DC United. (The importance Coleman affords his Irish heritage is evident in the fact his social media handle includes the word ‘Dubliner.’)
Should Sheehan be appointed on a full-time basis, he will face two main challenges: playing in a style faithful to that so prized by Swansea, and playing a role in improving the club’s recent dysfunction in the transfer market.
Williams, for instance, was undermined in his final weeks at the club by the sale of captain Matt Grimes to Coventry. A string of their own managers have criticised Swansea club’s recruitment policy: Russell Martin reacted to the club’s failure to buttress a promotion push in 2023 in not signing a single player by turning up at a press conference with all 17 members of his backroom staff, vowing not to quit and stressing the togetherness among his staff.
Williams, meanwhile, last month said the club “need to do better” in the transfer market, saying they had to “stop making fans unhappy.”
The Swansea City Supporters’ Trust own a minority stake in the club and have a seat on the board, and have been calling for a fans’ forum with Coleman to raise their issues in this regard. Their ire has been stoked by the fact the forum has been postponed twice, amid the upheaval caused by Williams’ exit.
Sheehan has conjured an admirable act of stability against this backdrop, with relegation fears eased if not yet entirely vanquished.
Should he fulfil his ambition and be given the job full-time, Sheehan will soon run into a greater set of expectations to be managed. If he can do that, then Irish football has another serious managerial talent on its hands.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Close
Comments
This is YOUR comments community. Stay civil, stay constructive, stay on topic.
Please familiarise yourself with our comments policy
here
before taking part.
The little-known Athlone man close to landing Swansea City job in England's Championship
THE ENGLISH FOOTBALL leagues are hardly buckling beneath the weight of Irish managers at the moment, which makes Alan Sheehan’s quiet rise at Swansea all the more remarkable.
Athlone-born Sheehan is in interim charge of Swansea at the moment, with the brief to steer the club away from any Championship relegation anxieties. Early results has seen him already take a giant stride in that direction, and Sheehan is now understood to be a major contender for the job on a permanent basis.
Sheehan is only 38, but is regarded as a highly ambitious coach and is now on the cusp of a landing a major opportunity.
Though capped only to U21 level for Ireland, Sheehan had a lengthy playing career in England’s lower leagues, playing more than 400 games across a near-20 year career.
Sheehan grew up in Coosan, Athlone, and having played for Belvedere in Dublin, he was signed by Leicester City as a teenager. This provided a spark of inspiration for a younger neighbour four doors’ down.
“The kickabouts in the garden, there would have been a bit of shin hacking, we always had great craic,” Irish rugby international Robbie Henshaw told The 42 in 2017.
“We always admired the way he played and we admired what he was doing as a young teenager across the water and making a living out of it. That did drive us a little bit, in terms of being ambitious.”
A left-back and set-piece specialist, Sheehan couldn’t quite establish himself as a first-team regular at Leicester, and bounced about on loan spells between permanent moves to League One Leeds and Swindon, before finding the ground steadier beneath his feet at Notts County, for whom he played more than 100 league games and earned the captaincy. He left the club at the end of his first season as captain, however, and further nomadic League One years were in store before he dropped down a division to join Luton Town, persuaded by the vision sold by manager Nathan Jones.
“The reason I came to Luton was because the manager, he had a plan. I believed in the plan and everything he’s told us is gradually coming true,” Sheehan told The 42 after Luton secured promotion.
Sheehan completed his Uefa A Licence while at Luton, and returned to the club to work on Jones’ coaching staff after he retired from playing.
“He probably has aspirations of being a manager but he has a lot of development to go yet, a lot of learning because of the way we work, we’re quite thorough, so it is a good education for him,” said Jones upon Sheehan’s appointment.
“We want to educate him to a good level so that he has choices in the future, that is what we do.”
Jones whisked Sheehan with him to Premier League Southampton in 2022, for what proved to be a brief, ill-fated, and headline-grabbing spell in charge. While Jones has re-surfaced at Charlton, Sheehan went his own way. When Luton’s chief operation officer Paul Watson moved to take up a role as sporting director at Swansea City, he installed Sheehan as a first-team coach.
Generally in football, a sporting director is hired before a first-team manager, but Swansea did things in the reverse order: Watson was announced four days after Michael Duff was appointed as successor to Russell Martin.
Duff didn’t even last six months in the job, with fans in revolt at his dowdy style of play. Swansea have prized their possession-centred approach ever since John Toshack developed “the Swansea Way” when he took charge of the club in the 1970s as player-manager, improbably leading them from the fourth-tier to the top flight.
That style was refurbished in recent years, first with Roberto Martinez, most famously with Brendan Rodgers and Michael Laudrup in the Premier League, and most recently with Russell Martin in the Championship.
Sheehan took interim charge after Duff’s exit, and reverted to his previous role when the club hired Luke Williams as Duff’s permanent successor. Williams was Martin’s assistant at Swansea, and so promised a return to the club’s style of play. But having steered the club away from relegation last season, Williams ran into trouble this time around, and was sacked last month after a run of seven defeats in nine games.
Sheehan is now in interim charge again, and has made a significant early impact, beating playoff-chasing Blackburn 3-0 before drawing 0-0 away to Preston. The results have lifted Swansea to 14th, 10 points clear of the relegation zone. Sheehan has been told his interim spell will extend to the end of the March international break, and he is understood to be in pole position to land the job full-time.
While Watson has left the club, Sheehan is understood to have a strong relationship with new Swansea owner and chairman Andy Coleman, an Irish-American investor who also owns a part-stake in MLS side DC United. (The importance Coleman affords his Irish heritage is evident in the fact his social media handle includes the word ‘Dubliner.’)
Should Sheehan be appointed on a full-time basis, he will face two main challenges: playing in a style faithful to that so prized by Swansea, and playing a role in improving the club’s recent dysfunction in the transfer market.
Williams, for instance, was undermined in his final weeks at the club by the sale of captain Matt Grimes to Coventry. A string of their own managers have criticised Swansea club’s recruitment policy: Russell Martin reacted to the club’s failure to buttress a promotion push in 2023 in not signing a single player by turning up at a press conference with all 17 members of his backroom staff, vowing not to quit and stressing the togetherness among his staff.
Williams, meanwhile, last month said the club “need to do better” in the transfer market, saying they had to “stop making fans unhappy.”
The Swansea City Supporters’ Trust own a minority stake in the club and have a seat on the board, and have been calling for a fans’ forum with Coleman to raise their issues in this regard. Their ire has been stoked by the fact the forum has been postponed twice, amid the upheaval caused by Williams’ exit.
Sheehan has conjured an admirable act of stability against this backdrop, with relegation fears eased if not yet entirely vanquished.
Should he fulfil his ambition and be given the job full-time, Sheehan will soon run into a greater set of expectations to be managed. If he can do that, then Irish football has another serious managerial talent on its hands.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Alan Sheehan Championship Republic Of Ireland Soccer Swansea City