SEVEN IRISHMEN HAVE taken charge of at least one Premier League game as a manager, but more have served as assistant manager to the Irish team than as the outright boss themselves.
Mick McCarthy is the only one of the seven to have held the top job with Ireland, while this month Paddy McCarthy will become the third to join the list of Premier League-standard assistants, along with Roy Keane and Chris Hughton.
(For the completionists out there: the remaining three names are David O’Leary, Joe Kinnear, and Owen Coyle.)
McCarthy has twice taken interim charge of Crystal Palace in the Premier League, each during managerial interregnums: the first after Patrick Vieira was sacked last year, and then last month, after Roy Hodgson had stood down and before Oliver Glasner took control.
,Later this month, McCarthy will briefly swap London for Dublin to work as John O’Shea’s assistant around the friendly games against Belgium and Switzerland.
When O’Shea was approached by the FAI with a view to an interim role, he picked McCarthy as his number two.
“Paddy has fantastic experience as a coach and is a great addition to the staff alongside his current role at Crystal Palace”, says FAI director of football Marc Canham. “His experience will prove invaluable to John and the team for these next two matches.”
A centre-back, McCarthy joined Palace as a player in 2008, following stints at Charlton and Leicester, the latter whom he joined from Manchester City’s youth academy. He never made a senior appearance for City, having joined from Stella Maris.
Though dogged by injury at Palace, McCarthy emerged as a leader in the dressing room, appointed captain ahead of the 2010/11 season. Loan spells and injury restricted him to just a single Premier League appearance at the club, a 1-0 win over Hull City in the 2013/14 season.
McCarthy retired as a player in 2016 and went straight into coaching, appointed as the club’s U18s coach. First he led them to third place in the Professional Development League Two, and the following year they won the title. Meanwhile, he completed his coaching badges with the FAI.
Former Dundalk manager Vinny Perth took his coaching courses alongside McCarthy.
“Paddy is one of the best people I’ve ever met in football, genuinely”, Perth tells The 42.
“He is your typical northside Dub: very friendly and very driven at the same time.
“I just felt he cared deeply about people, and the people he worked with. He texted me recently out of the blue, checking in, and to say ‘I hope you’re still chasing football jobs, and if you need anything, reach out to me.’ You don’t get a lot of that in football, but that’s Paddy’s mindset.”
McCarthy and Perth shared a Pro Licence course with some high-profile names, including Damien Duff, Robbie Keane, Keith Andrews, and Jim McGuinness. Perth describes McCarthy as being at ease around everyone, including the aforementioned headline-makers. At least initially, these courses often break off into groups from similar background. Those with a LOI background, for instance, naturally gravitate to each other, as do former senior internationals who once shared a dressing room. From day one, Perth says McCarthy was utterly at ease at moving from one group to another.
“He was able to hold his own”, says Perth. “He’s a big tall guy and I felt he had a real stature about him, he carried himself so well.”
Perth was the Dundalk manager at the time, and when his assistant Ruaidhri Higgins left to join Stephen Kenny at the FAI in 2020, he put in a call to McCarthy to see if he wanted the job. It ultimately didn’t happen, with McCarthy’s career blooming at Palace.
The Palace academy earned coveted category one status in 2020, which meant a promotion in their league football, and McCarthy’s U18s finished runners-up to Fulham on goal difference in their first season. The summer of 2021 brought a promotion of McCarthy’s own, to head coach of Palace’s U23s.
It was during his time in charge of this team that McCarthy sketched out his philosophy, in an interview with the Crystal Palace website. “We’re an aggressive, high-pressing team, first and foremost”, he explained. “We make it uncomfortable for the opposition. We like to play the game in the opposition’s half, we like to play with control, but obviously with fast attacking play as well.”
These modern principles are married with a few eternal virtues.
“He wants to play the game the right way”, says Perth. “At the same time, Paddy as a player and a person is about hard work, determination and getting every inch out of your body.”
Irish U21 international Killian Phillips can attest to that. He played for McCarthy at U23 level, and told David Sneyd of this parish of his impressions of his boss. “He’s a winner, he puts demands on you – win, win, win.”
McCarthy oversaw a few eye-catching wins with Palace, particularly when the U23s were regraded as U21s. Last season, he led them to the final of the international cup, and along the way they beat PSG 7-3 and edged a quarter-final against Liverpool. (Three of that Liverpool team picked up Carabao Cup medal last weekend.)
After Palace sacked Patrick Vieria last year, they turned to McCarthy to lead the side, overseeing a 4-1 loss to the then-league leaders, Arsenal. When Roy Hodgson took over, he retained McCarthy on his staff, with some reports suggesting that Palace saw McCarthy as a successor at some stage. His former team-mate Damien Delaney told Second Captains this week that he has no doubt McCarthy will be a future Palace manager.
Hodgson stood down last month, amid a poor run of form that was exacerbated by key injuries. McCarthy found himself in charge again, for a 1-1 draw with Everton. Oliver Glasner has since assumed his duties, but has retained McCarthy on his staff.
“First of all, they are great guys, not just great coaches”, says Glasner of McCarthy and goalkeeper coach Dean Kiely, whom he has also kept on. “From the beginning, from the first day, we had a good mood in our coaching staff. [They have] very important information about what happened before, about the players, and also not to give too much input from the beginning. We discuss it every day and I’m very pleased that they are part of our coaching staff.”
McCarthy never actually made a senior appearance for Ireland. He played to U21 level but was an unused substitute for the senior side in a 2009 friendly against South Africa. He was luckless enough to find himself competing at centre-back, a position in which Ireland were stacked.
But McCarthy is now carving out a coaching career to stand out amid an even more crowded field, and his CV arguably makes him a better pick for the interim head coach gig than O’Shea.
O’Shea has the job, though, but he must be commended on his hiring skills.
