Shelbourne have opened preliminary talks with Linfield manager David Healy about taking up the hotseat at Tolka Park.<\/p>\n
Joey O\u2019Brien was sacked a fortnight ago, just a year after succeeding his departed boss Damien Duff, and the Reds begin their European campaign with a Conference League tie on Thursday week.<\/p>\n
Ironically, that\u2019s against either N\u00f5mme Kalju or Healy\u2019s Linfield.<\/p>\n
The Estonians will take a 1-0 advantage to Belfast from last night\u2019s first leg.<\/p>\n
Linfield faced Shels twice in last year\u2019s European campaign, losing both ties as Shels reached the league phase for the first time in their history.<\/p>\n
Former Northern Ireland striker Healy has been at the Linfield helm since October 2015, delivered six league titles, two Irish Cups and four League Cups over his decade in charge.<\/p>\n
Interest from the former Leeds United, Sunderland and Rangers forward, who scored winners against England and Spain during Euro 2008 qualification, has arisen during his spell.<\/p>\n
He was close to joining Scottish Championship outfit Raith Rovers in 2024 before withdrawing his candidature and Dundee looked to approach him about their vacancy last year.<\/p>\n
Linfield managed to keep hold of their boss on both occasions, extending his contract until 2028, but it\u2019s understood the terms of his deal allow the 46-year-old to discuss approaches with other suitors.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s believed to have begun with Shels but no firm job has so far been tabled.<\/p>\n
The Reds have been surveying several candidates but the likelihood is of them making an appointment ahead of their European adventure.<\/p>\n
U20 manager Lorcan Fitzgerald was placed in temporary charge following O\u2019Brien\u2019s dismissal, overseeing a draw against Sligo Rovers and victory over Dundalk.<\/p>\n
Even though they received a bye through the Conference League first round, like all of Ireland\u2019s European participants, Shels have no league games this weekend.<\/p>\n
Next up is an FAI Cup trip to Kerry on Friday before they kick off their European crusade.<\/p>\n
Healy spoke glowingly about the League of Ireland\u2019s rising stock around the Shelbourne ties last year, highlighting the benefits of having an entire full-time Premier division.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe gap between the leagues is big,\u201d he said about the difference in the Northern league.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know how big but you look at how Shamrock Rovers did in Europe last year and Shels are there now.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople will say our league should be full-time, whether the opposition at times can be a little stronger to prepare you for games like this?<\/p>\n
\u201cDrogheda United won the FAI Cup last year and moved to full-time whereas I understand some clubs in our league can\u2019t afford to do that.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bottom end could fall out because lots of players are born and bred into this league, the mentality of part-time football, semi-professional football.<\/p>\n
“So, if you start wielding the axe and basically saying everybody has to go full-time, you’ll lose some good players because financially it’s not adequate for them to just be a full-time footballer when they have a second job – which potentially pays more.<\/p>\n
“And then of course, the club situation, how do clubs pay for full-time players, a full-time environment?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s impossible to do that without the help of government bodies, which again, here, is hard to do.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shelbourne have opened preliminary talks with Linfield manager David Healy about taking up the hotseat at Tolka Park.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1113,42,2539,5782,43,5783,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-542508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-fai","tag-headlines","tag-league-of-ireland","tag-local-soccer","tag-news","tag-premiership","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542508","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=542508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}