Pressure is on Shels - Shiels

Dundalk midfielder Paul Shiels has declared that the pressure is off his side as the Lilywhites do battle for the League of Ireland First Division crown this weekend. After setting the pace for a total of 20 weeks this season, Dundalk go into this Saturday’s deciding set of matches a point behind Shelbourne and in need of a minor miracle if they are to finally close the book on a painful seven-season exile from top flight football. And, Shiels believes that sitting pretty at the top may prove a more difficult position to cope with.

“We have absolutely nothing to lose now,” Shiels states to dundalkfc.com. “We have shown throughout the season that any time we had a chance, we used up all our lives. Maybe, we’ll go down to Kildare now with no pressure on us and win the game, and stranger things have happened. I think if we win the game, there’s a chance that we’ll win the league. People are a bit down, but it’s still there for us.

“Shels will be strong favourites. They’re at home, they’re playing Limerick and they have a big incentive there, where if they win the game, they’ll win the league. We just have to go down to Kildare and win. There’s a lot of permutations and combinations, but, at the end of the day, it’s out of our hands. Regardless of what happens at Tolka Park, we just have to go down, win our game and finish the season off on a high.

“It’s important that we go out and do our business and get the three points, and then we’ll see what happens after that. If you were going down there and thinking you had to match Shels’ result or you were going down thinking a draw was enough, that would be nearly more difficult. In a way, the pressure is off us, really. I think we’re all fairly focussed, we know we need to beat Kildare, we all understand that, and then we’ll see what happens elsewhere.

“You’d like to think that if we were in Shels’ position that we’d go out and do it. But Limerick aren’t a bad side, they’ve been our bogey team this year, and in the second half of the season, they’ve probably been the form team after Shels. They’ve already gone to Tolka this year and won 2-0, so I just hope that they go up there and apply themselves properly. Hopefully, they’ll go there and give it a good shot, and if Shels beat them fair and square, then so be it. As I say, we just want to go down to Kildare, win our own game and finish on a good note.”

Dundalk have, on more than one occasion this season, let a healthy lead at the summit slip. Just two months ago, they held an eight-point advantage over Shels, and Shiels admits, even if he does secure the fourth promotion success of his career, that he will be unhappy at how the squad have let their standards drop during the course of the campaign.

“Regardless of what happens on Saturday evening, even if we win the league, I’ll be slightly disappointed,” the Clones native states. “We’ve lost seven matches this year, and with the group of players and the talent that we have here, that’s scandalous. This club obviously wants to go up to the Premier Division, we set ourselves standards and we’ve let those drop terribly this year, every one of us. Whatever happens, it’s disappointing to lose seven matches. Really, it’s not good enough.

“There’s a lot of results that you can look back on and have regrets about. Every team is the same, though. Shels can look back and say they dropped silly points. At the end of the day, if they win it, they’ll only win it by a point, so it’s not as if they have run away with it. They’ve dropped a lot of points, just as we have. When you look at some of our matches, down in Waterford was particularly galling. Looking back to that, a point there would have been a great result.

“You can look back throughout the season and we have let ourselves down way too often. Seven losses and then a couple of draws, especially down in Athlone and up in Monaghan when we drew 2-2. We’ve dropped terrible points. It’s just a lack of concentration over the season and that’s disappointing, regardless of whether we win the league on Saturday or not.”

Despite that disappointment, however, Paul admits that he has thoroughly enjoyed his first season at the Louth club after signing from Shamrock Rovers last December. “I have to say, I have really enjoyed it,” he enthuses. “I came from Rovers last year and it’s a totally different set-up here. The club is run 100%. It’s brilliant. It’s very professional and John has done everything perfectly, even with little things like sandwiches and that.

“There’s a great bunch of lads here and that makes a huge difference too. You can come up here and enjoy training. I have to say, this is probably the most enjoyable season that I’ve had in I’d say the last five years. Obviously, there are huge disappointments, but I’ve enjoyed being here immensely.”

Whether or not he will remain for a second term, however, is uncertain. “I don’t know what the future holds,” the 28-year-old admits. “I think we’re all in the same boat. We need to win on Saturday and then see what happens after that. We obviously don’t know, there’s no point being naïve, there’s rumours out there about whether or not John will be here next year. Nobody knows, so I guess you just have to wait and see what happens.”

Last July, the midfielder - an outsider for the club’s Player of the Year award after impressing greatly with his performances this season - admitted that he may find it difficult to play again in the Premier Division, given the commitment that is required. Now, however, he admits that top flight football might interest him more than it would have done when he pondered his options back in the middle of the campaign.

“With what has gone on in the Premier over the last three or four months, maybe it has evened the whole thing out and it might not be such a big gulf anymore,” Shiels assesses. “Over the last couple of years, you had the big four, but with what is going on, financially, at clubs now, the gap might not be that big. But, in saying that, it’s still a fair step-up, and if this team was to go up and the bones of it stuck together, there’s a lot of work to be done.

“For a newly promoted team going up to the Premier, it’s tough and you’re going to struggle. I’d really have to think about it. It’s easy to get carried away in the emotion, and you’d be saying that you’d love to play with Dundalk in the Premier, but you’d have to be honest with yourself, the club and the manager about whether or not you could give it the full commitment that the club deserves in the Premier. I don’t know if I could do that. I’d have to really sit down and think about it.”

Throughout the year, and particularly in the latter stages of the season, John Gill’s position as manager has been widely speculated upon. And, while he would like to see the boss continue on for a fourth term at Oriel Park, Shiels admits that the season will be a total failure if the club fail to win their season-long goal of promotion.

“I’ve worked with John this year and I have to say that it has been fantastic,” Paul states. “I’ve really enjoyed working with him. This is his third year here, and if we do win promotion, a lot of people will be looking in saying, ‘Jaysus, they’re getting rid of a manager that’s after winning promotion, and, technically, he’s won promotion twice in his three seasons’. Obviously, if we do win the league, it would be strange to let a manager go after doing that. If we don’t win it, Dundalk is a massive club and anything less than winning it is deemed a failure.

“In my eyes, if we don’t win the league, the season is an absolute failure, with the squad that we had here. If someone had said to me at the start of the year that you’d finish second, I’d have said that’s a failure, and I’m not going to change my view now. If we don’t win it, it’s definitely a failure, without a shadow of a doubt. And, as I said, even if we do win it, it’s disappointing because we’ve dropped so many points and we’ve lost so many games, because with the squad that we have, we shouldn’t lose seven games in a season.”