IN TWO MONTHS, Aiden O’Brien could be a league and cup double-winner.
Two months ago, he was a free agent without a club.
At the peak of his career, O’Brien was playing regularly in the Championship with Millwall and won five caps for Ireland between 2018 and 2019.
Yet the 2020s have not gone as well as he would have hoped.
At the beginning of the decade, his 11-year spell at the Den ended as his contract expired.
Four and a half years on, it feels like O’Brien is still searching for a new home.
Since leaving Millwall in 2020, including loan spells, the 30-year-old forward has played for six different clubs.
He made 226 appearances for Millwall, but his game time was considerably less at successive parent clubs — Sunderland (53 games), Portsmouth (17), and Shrewsbury Town (20)
Moreover, having been a Championship regular between 2017 and 2019, O’Brien was dropping down the divisions.
He spent part of last season on loan at Sutton United, scoring two goals in 29 appearances as the club finished 23rd and were relegated from League Two to the National League.
Shrewsbury opted not to renew his contract and O’Brien spent time during the summer at a Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA) camp for out-of-contract players.
O’Brien found the experience illuminating. He was surrounded by ex-Premier League players, as well as former internationals and one-time Championship stars like himself.
“I’m thinking there are guys like this in the same camp as me,” he recalls. “What right does it give me? It doesn’t give me a right to be at a club. It humbled me a little bit and gave me a kick up the backside to say: ‘Get your head down, work hard and something will come.’”
The camp helped O’Brien stay fit so he was ready to go when an interested club called.
The difficult experience of the last few years and the disillusionment it sometimes prompted gave him perspective and a reminder of the important people in his life.
“It’s just about having good people, good family members around you to keep you sane and positive, when things are going wrong, and you’re not the flavour of the week.
“Sometimes in your career, you’re going to have ups and downs, and this summer was a real eye-opener, I must say. People I’ve had a lot of interactions with and a long relationship with throughout the game, for them to show their cards helped me realise what I need to do this summer in the PFA camp.”
Some frustrating previous stints helped O’Brien understand the importance of the environment — he would not settle for any club at a certain level, it needed to be the right fit. In Shelbourne, whom he joined last month, O’Brien believes he has made the perfect choice.
Their manager, Damien Duff, was a big reason for the decision. The Ireland legend made O’Brien and his family “feel wanted”.
He adds: “That plays a massive part I’ve learned in my career — that gets the best out of me. Hopefully, I can get back to that level where I was playing well week, in and week out in the Championship, getting called up for Ireland.
“I’m still only 30. There’s still a lot of life left in me. And that’s what people seem to forget. You get a lot of frowns when you hear ’30′ as a player these days from staff and managers. But trust me when I say there’s a lot of life left in 30-year-olds and I feel really good. So hopefully I can get back to those levels here in Ireland.”
While emphasising the importance of the club’s entire coaching staff, O’Brien is full of praise for Duff in particular, describing his “intensity,” training sessions and game analysis as “top-level stuff”.
“He loves his poetry before games, he brings out all these sayings and puts stuff on the board to fire us up and stuff from the past. There is always something that gets us going with the gaffer, he always has something up his sleeve to rile the boys up. It’s just so refreshing. The boys love it. The boys absolutely love it.
“In my time in football, there have been some managers who have been similar to what the gaffer Damien Duff has with us but there is also the opposite where they don’t really care. If you’re not in the team, if you’re not performing, they don’t care how your family is doing, they don’t care what you’re doing, you’re just a piece of meat.
“That’s the cruel game we’re in, some people take a liking to your personal life and see how you are and some people know personal life has a big effect on the pitch. And that’s what [Duff is] brilliant at. He’s probably the best at it so far and I’ve only been here for a month.
“He’s got a massive game to prepare for but he’s always asking how my family are doing, and this and that. He doesn’t need to ask that but he does because he knows if my family and I are good, he’ll get the best out of me on the weekend, and also he’s a good human, that’s what it should be like [always].”
O’Brien also recalled how a couple of inspirational calls, voice notes and messages from Duff left the forward in no doubt that Shelbourne would be his next destination.
“It just made me think: ‘Wow, I want to go to war for this guy.’ I don’t know this guy personally, but I feel like I know him just from these chats we’ve been having over WhatsApp.
“And that was powerful for me because I was sitting with the missus in the garden and listening to these voice notes and these messages were going back and forth and I was like: ‘Yeah where do I sign? I’m ready for this.’ A feeling came over me that this is what I want to do. It happened quickly and I’m really happy it did.”
Yet for all Duff’s charisma, O’Brien also speaks glowingly of his eye for footballing details.
Man-management can only get teams so far and Shels would not be exceeding expectations and topping the league this season were it not for an astute tactical approach.
The former Chelsea winger shows players how to attack or press a particular opposition team every week.
“He’ll explain where a player should press from, how he wants them to go and this and that, it’s really detailed. It leaves no room for error, everyone goes on the pitch and knows exactly where they’re going and there are three or four ways to do it — so if [one] way doesn’t work, you can go to plan B, plan C.
“Knowing that the manager puts that much detail and effort into his pre-match stuff, it gives the players much more armour and fight if you go into the game with all that knowledge and preparation. At clubs I’ve been at I’ve not had much of that. It gives you a lot of confidence going into games knowing how you’re going to get at that centre-back.
“‘Here are three ways, you decide when to use them but I’m telling you these three ways will work,’ and he does that with every player on the pitch. Everyone has got three or four ways to get at a player.”
O’Brien spoke to journalists on Wednesday, which happened to be the sixth anniversary of his international debut and only Ireland goal during a 1-1 draw away to Poland.
The day before, he attended the Aviva Stadium for Ireland’s 2-0 Nations League loss to Greece.
“I know I didn’t score there, [but] it gives me goosebumps every time,” he says of the stadium.
The memorable header was named Goal of the Year at the FAI Awards.
“I’ve got the trophy at home, actually,” he adds. “It’s moments like that where it doesn’t sink in, and it won’t sink in probably until I’m sitting in my house retired, sipping a beer and eating something, and I look at the trophy and it’ll probably sink in then. But they have not really sunk in yet, all these moments that have happened in my life.”
As he prepares for this evening’s crucial FAI Cup quarter-final against fellow title challengers Derry City, the Shels star may be far from the Ireland fold. However, O’Brien believes his manager would be more than capable of stepping up to coach the national team at some point in the future.
“I am only Aiden O’Brien, I am nobody to comment on where he can go and where he can’t go. But the level of detail he and his staff give is no different from what I’ve seen in the international team.
“If he keeps doing what he’s doing, if he keeps being the person he is, the hard work he keeps putting in with his staff, the world is his oyster. I don’t see why not. He has got all the attributes.”
