Doherty option 'smacking Shelbourne in the face'

Keith Treacy believes Shelbourne should look to Kevin Doherty as a leading candidate to fill their managerial vacancy if they can prise him away from Drogheda United.

The club parted ways with Joey O'Brien last week, around 12 months after the former Shels assistant boss had succeeded fellow former Republic of Ireland international Damien Duff.

The decision has come as the UEFA Conference League qualifiers loom large next month, alongside the ongoing challenge of reviving their SSE Airtricity Men's Premier Division campaign.

Speaking on the RTÉ Soccer Podcast, ex-Ireland winger Treacy said Doherty would be an obvious route to explore considering his long past association with the Tolka Park side and his achievements at Drogheda.

"I think somebody smacking Shelbourne in the face is Kevin Doherty and I know Drogheda fans - I used to play there - they won't want that to be said, but Kevin has done so well over the last two, three, four years that he deserves a move," he said.

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"And look, maybe you could argue that Shelbourne is possibly a sideward move, but with European football there, they were champions in the not so recent past, I think somebody like Kevin Doherty would be an easy one in your head to put together, but can they go and get him out of Drogheda remains to be seen."

Speculation has suggested that Shelbourne will approach the highly-rated Stephen Rice, who is currently set-piece coach at Brentford under Keith Andrews - a part of a growing Irish core in west London which was recently added to by the aforementioned Duff.

"If you're in Stephen Rice's shoes, what would he be thinking? I'm not too sure," said Treacy.

"It depends if he wants to make that jump into being a coach or a manager or whatever title you want to give it in modern days.

"If I was knocking around at Shelbourne, I would be looking for a safe pair of hands. And I know Stephen Rice has played in the league, but he hasn't managed in the league.

"I'm not sure if he keeps his finger on the pulse of the League of Ireland. These are all questions you would have to ask Stephen himself and is he familiar with players, is he familiar with formations, how opposition play?

"Or is it going to take him a couple of weeks to get up to speed about everything else?"

Meanwhile, ex-Shels midfielder Alan Cawley said the writing felt on the wall for previous manager O'Brien after he went to see their 3-0 home defeat to Bohemians last Monday.

"I came away from Tolka thinking if ever there was a performance to get a manager the sack or that all is not well in the camp, that was it," he said.

"So straight away alarm bells ringing for me as I was walking home, but then nothing happened for a couple of days.

"And that's not all on Joey. As I said, the team line-up and the team set-up kind of had me baffled, but the players as well, the body language was horrendous on the pitch. The whole thing looked wrong. I was thinking all is not well here."

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