Bradley<\/a>, who played with Stevens at Rovers under O\u2019Neill, said: \u201cWe are absolutely delighted.<\/p>\n\u201cEnda has been training with us for the last few weeks, he\u2019s someone who\u2019s had a brilliant career at a really high level. He will bring that know-how and quality to the group which is really important.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve always stayed in touch. I played with Enda also. Any time he\u2019s been home from England, he has come in and been around the group, done bits of training with us and used the training ground.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we\u2019ve always had that sort of relationship and when I knew Enda and his family wanted to move home, it was a natural progression to try and get him to Rovers.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s been in training the last five or six weeks and we\u2019re delighted to get it done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stevens, who first joined Rovers from St Patrick\u2019s Athletic, earned a move to Villa thanks to his eye-catching displays, particularly on their historic first ever run to the Europa League group stages in 2011.<\/p>\n
He made his Villa debut against Manchester United and joined Portsmouth in 2015. After his move to Sheffield United, he made his senior Ireland debut in June 2018 against the USA.<\/p>\n
After six years with the Blades, he moved to Stoke City in June 2023.<\/p>\n
Bradley added: \u201cWhen you look at the level Enda has played at throughout his career, he will be a really important player for us on the pitch, that\u2019s the number one reason he\u2019s here.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut he can also help the likes of Cory O\u2019Sullivan and Igor Vassenin and other young players in the club that play in a similar position. He\u2019ll be able to help them develop and they can only learn from Enda which is a big positive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Bradley is hopeful of wrapping up a new deal for star striker Rory Gaffney.<\/p>\n
The 36-year-old was outstanding against Shakhtar Donetsk on Thursday, a couple of weeks after his FAI Cup final brace against Cork City.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like he is playing with a freedom he didn\u2019t have last year,\u201d said Bradley.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur full plans are for Rory to be here [next season]. We are really really far down the road in terms of negotiations. There were more talks this morning and I think we are just there for Rory. I’d imagine that will get done in the next day or two.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really important that he is here, not just for his performances but for everything. There’s a reason he’s playing at 36 and playing like that – because of how he lives his life.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really important that the young strikers can look at Rory and understand what it takes to have a career for a long period of time. That will only help their development. He is going to be really important for us next year in every way.\u201d<\/p>\n
And Jack Byrne is set to return to Tallaght Stadium from his loan spell in Dubai.<\/p>\n
\u201cI met Jack. We had a lunch last week and I brought him his league medal,\u201d Bradley confirmed. \u201cWe had a good chat and a good discussion. I would expect Jack to be back with us in January.\u201d<\/p>\n
Click here to sign up to our soccer newsletter, bringing you the top stories and biggest headlines from the League of Ireland and beyond<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 26-time capped Ireland defender won two League of Ireland titles in his first season with Rovers.Enda Stevens(Image:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[91986,15011,61,60,2539,65560,43,91988,57217,91985,91987,16489,43175,91989],"class_list":["post-165462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-aston-villa-fc","tag-europa-league","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-league-of-ireland","tag-michael-oneill","tag-news","tag-portsmouth-fc","tag-republic-of-ireland-national-football-team","tag-shamrock-rovers-fc","tag-sheffield-united-fc","tag-st-patricks-athletic-fc","tag-stephen-bradley","tag-stoke-city-fc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Enda](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/0_inpho_02037886.jpg\")
Enda Stevens(Image: \u00a9INPHO\/Ryan Byrne)<\/p>\n