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John Egan: For the first 20 minutes, you can see teams don’t know how to handle us
As the linchpin in Sheffield United’s defence, John Egan has a perfect view of the havoc their formation wreaks
John Egan is trying to explain why Sheffield United are different from other Premier League teams. After 25 matches, they have 36 points and sit sixth in the table. Victory over Bournemouth at Bramall Lane this afternoon would lift them over Tottenham into fifth. The gist of Egan’s argument is that this isn’t as much of a surprise as people think.
This goes back to his season at Brentford in the Championship. He was captain of the west London club, liked the set-up there and enjoyed a good relationship with Dean Smith, then the manager. They played Sheffield United away and then later that season at Griffin Park. It was that home game against the Blades that turned Egan’s head.
“Afterwards I thought, ‘If they don’t go up this year, they’re going up next year.’ They were so hard to play against, everyone working for each other. When the manager came in for me in the summer, I felt I had to go. People said I was moving sideways. I knew I wasn’t.”
Chris Wilder, he says, is “an exceptional manager”. What makes him exceptional?
“It is the way he gets inside your head so that every time you go on the pitch, you’re going to do whatever it takes to win that game. The way he speaks to the lads, knowing when to say, ‘Come on, lads,’ knowing when to relax a bit.
“He’s the same on the training ground, Monday to Friday. You have to be at 100 per cent. Nothing less. You can see it in games, we run on top of teams and that’s all down to the work we do in training. There are no days off here. If you want a day off, you’re at the wrong club.”
Egan is now 27 and likes to say that he has found a city, a club and a group of lads that remind him of home in Bishopstown, a southwestern suburb of Cork. In his youth he played hurling and Gaelic football at school and excelled at both. He also played Gaelic and hurling for Bishopstown. Football was his other love.
In all the local teams he felt the sense of belonging that lies at the heart of Gaelic games. Remarkably, the Blades remind him of the teams he once played for. “Here the manager is from Sheffield, the captain [Billy Sharp] is from Sheffield, we have a lot of English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh lads. We’ve signed a few more Europeans but the whole group, it does remind me of a GAA team because there’s no bad egg, there’s no one who thinks he’s better than the next fellow.
“We’re just a group of honest, hardworking lads trying to do the best they can in the Premier League.”
Their best has been impressive for not only have the results been good, the football has been imaginative and easy to watch. Chris Basham and Jack O’Connell play either side of Egan in a back three and are encouraged to attack whenever they wish. Whether or not the team did, the Blades are credited with the creation of a new role: the overlapping centre back, and they have two of them.
That’s all very fine says Egan, except he’s the one shouting at them to get back into position. “It is funny,” he admits, “but in so many Premier League games you can see our formation boggles the minds of our opponents through the first 20 or 25 [minutes]. They don’t know what to do about our centre backs bombing forward.”
Basham and O’Connell are his two best mates in the team. They played together for the first time against Inter Milan in July 2018 and clicked. Now they meet up in midweek for coffees and an hour or two after a match they’ll be texting about things in the game.
Egan has this dream that he can persuade Basham and O’Connell and a few of the others to travel with him back to Sneem in Co Kerry, the village now synonymous with his father, John Sr. There, they would see the life-size statue erected in his honour and hear stories about one of the greatest players in the history of Gaelic football.
Young John was a 19-year-old learning his trade at Sunderland when John Sr died not long after heart surgery. That was a bad time but if his team-mates could get him in the mood, he could tell them all the good things, too. For a start, people used to say he was blessed with two names: John Egan and John Egan’s son.
His father won six All-Ireland medals with his native Kerry but for years the boy could only see him as Dad. They would practise Gaelic football together and the boy saw himself one day playing for Kerry. Most of all John Sr talked to the boy about self-belief. He’d say if you get your mentality right, that will allow your ability to speak for itself.
How he needed that. After five years at Sunderland, he was released, unwanted. The League One club Gillingham signed him. He played 52 games that season and was the club’s player of the year. “Even at Sunderland, I felt that all I needed was a chance,” he says. “I found it frustrating.”
And if the Sheffield United lads were down in Sneem, young John could tell them about the time he realised his dad wasn’t just his dad. They’d be going to a Munster or All-Ireland final and two or three hundred yards from the stadium, it would start. People stopping his dad.
They’d recall goals he scored in All-Ireland finals, so often the big score because he was a big-game player. They’d tell him he was the best player in the greatest Kerry team. All these years later, Egan finds himself wondering what his dad would say about this or that? Belief was the thing he kept banging on about. “It’s no good,” he’d say, “being the favourite that sweats up in the parade ring before the race.”
There was also John Sr’s understanding of hardness. “People will tell you that they’re hard. The definition of a hard man is someone who has no fear of losing or failing.”
They deliberated about an amateur career in Gaelic football and hurling or a professional career in football. The teenager thought to stay with his beloved Gaelic games but his dad said he could see him developing into a really good footballer. When the decision was made, the boy taunted his father: “You’re lucky I’m going off to Sunderland. If I stayed here and played Gaelic football, they’d forget you. No statue below in Sneem.”
They were sorry to see him leave Bishopstown, the local club and community around it. Brian Cuthbert is principal of Bishopstown Boys secondary school and chairman of the local GAA club. “I’ve been teacher and principal at the school for 25 years. Thousands of boys have passed through in that time. John was the most talented sportsman we’ve seen — and by a long way. He was also a good student.
“I remember we were talking in the staff room after he went to Sunderland at 16. And the general view was that if he didn’t make it into the Premier League, there would be no point in any other kid from Cork trying. We’re really proud of what he’s doing at Sheffield United.”
The gaelic games connection
John Egan’s father, John, was regarded as one of the finest players of the Kerry team who dominated Gaelic football in the mid-1970s. Kerry played back-to-back All-Ireland finals against Dublin in 1975-76. Lining up against Egan in 1976 was Kevin Moran, who would go on to enjoy an illustrious football career with Manchester United and Blackburn Rovers.
Moran’s Ireland teammate Niall Quinn would play for Dublin in the 1983 All-Ireland minor (junior) hurling championship final. Southampton forward Shane Long, meanwhile, appeared in two minor hurling semi-finals with Tipperary in 2003-04
As the linchpin in Sheffield United’s defence, John Egan has a perfect view of the havoc their formation wreaks
John Egan is trying to explain why Sheffield United are different from other Premier League teams. After 25 matches, they have 36 points and sit sixth in the table. Victory over Bournemouth at Bramall Lane this afternoon would lift them over Tottenham into fifth. The gist of Egan’s argument is that this isn’t as much of a surprise as people think.
This goes back to his season at Brentford in the Championship. He was captain of the west London club, liked the set-up there and enjoyed a good relationship with Dean Smith, then the manager. They played Sheffield United away and then later that season at Griffin Park. It was that home game against the Blades that turned Egan’s head.
“Afterwards I thought, ‘If they don’t go up this year, they’re going up next year.’ They were so hard to play against, everyone working for each other. When the manager came in for me in the summer, I felt I had to go. People said I was moving sideways. I knew I wasn’t.”
Chris Wilder, he says, is “an exceptional manager”. What makes him exceptional?
“It is the way he gets inside your head so that every time you go on the pitch, you’re going to do whatever it takes to win that game. The way he speaks to the lads, knowing when to say, ‘Come on, lads,’ knowing when to relax a bit.
“He’s the same on the training ground, Monday to Friday. You have to be at 100 per cent. Nothing less. You can see it in games, we run on top of teams and that’s all down to the work we do in training. There are no days off here. If you want a day off, you’re at the wrong club.”
Egan is now 27 and likes to say that he has found a city, a club and a group of lads that remind him of home in Bishopstown, a southwestern suburb of Cork. In his youth he played hurling and Gaelic football at school and excelled at both. He also played Gaelic and hurling for Bishopstown. Football was his other love.
In all the local teams he felt the sense of belonging that lies at the heart of Gaelic games. Remarkably, the Blades remind him of the teams he once played for. “Here the manager is from Sheffield, the captain [Billy Sharp] is from Sheffield, we have a lot of English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh lads. We’ve signed a few more Europeans but the whole group, it does remind me of a GAA team because there’s no bad egg, there’s no one who thinks he’s better than the next fellow.
“We’re just a group of honest, hardworking lads trying to do the best they can in the Premier League.”
Their best has been impressive for not only have the results been good, the football has been imaginative and easy to watch. Chris Basham and Jack O’Connell play either side of Egan in a back three and are encouraged to attack whenever they wish. Whether or not the team did, the Blades are credited with the creation of a new role: the overlapping centre back, and they have two of them.
That’s all very fine says Egan, except he’s the one shouting at them to get back into position. “It is funny,” he admits, “but in so many Premier League games you can see our formation boggles the minds of our opponents through the first 20 or 25 [minutes]. They don’t know what to do about our centre backs bombing forward.”
Basham and O’Connell are his two best mates in the team. They played together for the first time against Inter Milan in July 2018 and clicked. Now they meet up in midweek for coffees and an hour or two after a match they’ll be texting about things in the game.
Egan has this dream that he can persuade Basham and O’Connell and a few of the others to travel with him back to Sneem in Co Kerry, the village now synonymous with his father, John Sr. There, they would see the life-size statue erected in his honour and hear stories about one of the greatest players in the history of Gaelic football.
Young John was a 19-year-old learning his trade at Sunderland when John Sr died not long after heart surgery. That was a bad time but if his team-mates could get him in the mood, he could tell them all the good things, too. For a start, people used to say he was blessed with two names: John Egan and John Egan’s son.
His father won six All-Ireland medals with his native Kerry but for years the boy could only see him as Dad. They would practise Gaelic football together and the boy saw himself one day playing for Kerry. Most of all John Sr talked to the boy about self-belief. He’d say if you get your mentality right, that will allow your ability to speak for itself.
How he needed that. After five years at Sunderland, he was released, unwanted. The League One club Gillingham signed him. He played 52 games that season and was the club’s player of the year. “Even at Sunderland, I felt that all I needed was a chance,” he says. “I found it frustrating.”
And if the Sheffield United lads were down in Sneem, young John could tell them about the time he realised his dad wasn’t just his dad. They’d be going to a Munster or All-Ireland final and two or three hundred yards from the stadium, it would start. People stopping his dad.
They’d recall goals he scored in All-Ireland finals, so often the big score because he was a big-game player. They’d tell him he was the best player in the greatest Kerry team. All these years later, Egan finds himself wondering what his dad would say about this or that? Belief was the thing he kept banging on about. “It’s no good,” he’d say, “being the favourite that sweats up in the parade ring before the race.”
There was also John Sr’s understanding of hardness. “People will tell you that they’re hard. The definition of a hard man is someone who has no fear of losing or failing.”
They deliberated about an amateur career in Gaelic football and hurling or a professional career in football. The teenager thought to stay with his beloved Gaelic games but his dad said he could see him developing into a really good footballer. When the decision was made, the boy taunted his father: “You’re lucky I’m going off to Sunderland. If I stayed here and played Gaelic football, they’d forget you. No statue below in Sneem.”
They were sorry to see him leave Bishopstown, the local club and community around it. Brian Cuthbert is principal of Bishopstown Boys secondary school and chairman of the local GAA club. “I’ve been teacher and principal at the school for 25 years. Thousands of boys have passed through in that time. John was the most talented sportsman we’ve seen — and by a long way. He was also a good student.
“I remember we were talking in the staff room after he went to Sunderland at 16. And the general view was that if he didn’t make it into the Premier League, there would be no point in any other kid from Cork trying. We’re really proud of what he’s doing at Sheffield United.”
The gaelic games connection
John Egan’s father, John, was regarded as one of the finest players of the Kerry team who dominated Gaelic football in the mid-1970s. Kerry played back-to-back All-Ireland finals against Dublin in 1975-76. Lining up against Egan in 1976 was Kevin Moran, who would go on to enjoy an illustrious football career with Manchester United and Blackburn Rovers.
Moran’s Ireland teammate Niall Quinn would play for Dublin in the 1983 All-Ireland minor (junior) hurling championship final. Southampton forward Shane Long, meanwhile, appeared in two minor hurling semi-finals with Tipperary in 2003-04
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