John O'Shea has played in more competitive games for Manchester United than all but 28 men who've represented the club over the past 133 years. Not bad going to be in the top thirty there. He has started 301 matches and wore the red shirt (and all other variations of the kit) more times than, amongst others, Nicky Butt, Frank Stapleton, Kevin Moran, Paul Ince and Andy Cole. Of course, he also came off the bench on 92 other occasions, a figure surpassed only by long-servers like Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes, and by the supersub of a previous era, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
Whatever he does from now on then, those numbers, at least on the surface, suggest the Waterford man had a fine innings at Old Trafford. As all the newspaper articles about his pending departure this past week have mentioned, he also won 15 trophies in 12 years. A breathtaking achievement. Well, until it is given closer examination. Firstly, aside from a couple of League Cup outings, he didn't start to feature in the first team until the 2001 season. So he's really only been in the United first team squad for a decade. Still, an impressive stint which makes all the more unnecessary the casual exaggeration.
Even against that background, the career of O'Shea remains a hard one to quantify. The statistics are in his favor, most of the time. His supporters will point to the medals he won as proof enough of the success of his tenure but we all know he didn't play a crucial part in any of those triumphs. He won a Champions' League medal in 2008. Yes, he did, as an unused sub at the end of a tournament in which he'd started just four games and featured as a sub twice more. Those numbers make him an Irish David May and if you don't understand that reference, look it up.
He may be able to claim almost as many trophies as Irwin and Keane but the Corkmen were key contributors to almost every bauble they collected. If anything, O'Shea was an underachiever, starting off like somebody destined for greatness yet leaving with arguments about his "goodness" still raging among United fans. Some prized his versatility and loyalty and appreciated his willingness to take any role given to him. In recent years though, many more felt his continued presence was indicative of how the club was falling behind Barcelona and others.
That Sunderland came in for him backs up that argument, not a team likely to be playing Champions' League football this millennium or the next. And while we are on the subject, stories linking O'Shea to Liverpool or Arsenal reeked of mischievous agents trying to drive up his salary demands. It's time we all admitted he's not a player who should be starting for a serious top of the table club.
It says much about O'Shea though that he can and will provoke debate. On the list of those who've played European Cup or Champions' League for United, O'Shea comes in seventh in terms of appearances. Seventh! Think of all the greats behind him on that litany. He started three times as many games in that competition as Teddy Sheringham, almost three times as many as Ji Sung Park. The South Korean comparison is most telling. In recent seasons, Park was seen as a guy to start in the big games, the fixtures that mattered most. On too many nights in Europe, O'Shea was regarded as a dependable member of the second XI, the makeshift unit sent out to play in the meaningless end of group games after qualification had long since been assured.
Maybe it should be enough for us to have an Irishman in the set-up at all, even as a bit-part player these days. Perhaps we've been spoiled by the Keane and Irwin era, and can't reasonably expect to have our representatives as key figures in the best sides in Europe. Whatever, the fact is that before the Kevin Doyle to Arsenal story blew up this past few days, O'Shea's leaving of Old Trafford could have easily caused us deep gloom. Unless the Doyle thing pans out, O'Shea was the last hope of a player born and bred in the Republic of Ireland playing Champions' League in the immediate future.
There are some of us who think O'Shea should have left United sooner. A lot sooner. At 30, he is getting on in football years and his best may already be behind him. Which is a pity because he wasted some of those seasons playing in United's second XI in Premier League matches that were won most times before the whistle was even blown for kick-off. It will be a true test of him how he adapts to playing in a side that is battling uphill on a regular basis. Phil Neville, another willing utility man who was prepared to live off first-team scraps at Old Trafford for years, managed to make that leap when he moved to Everton. Can O'Shea?
Well it's instructive that between 1995 and 2005, Neville started 210 Premier League games for United and left at the age of 28. O'Shea has managed 188 starts in his ten meaningful seasons. He only reached the landmark of 30 starts in two of those campaigns and most worrying of all is that since 2006, he reached 20 starts just once and that was two years back. Even allowing for the fact he's been hampered by injuries over that period, this can still be regarded as evidence that from his mid-twenties, he's been slipping down the reckoning at the club.
If it took being in a suit and tie rather than a tracksuit at the Champions' League final in May to make him realize that, this recognition was long overdue. Perhaps being a bit-part player at United is harder to do than making a difference for a lesser side. One way or the other, we are about to find out.
