O’Shea remembers his goalkeeper appearance in new UTD Podcast

O’Shea also dispels the suggestion that versatility can hamper a player’s career and, in contrast, credits his own flexibility as the key to making 393 United appearances. 

John literally fulfilled every role as a Red and that unique achievement is an immediate talking point in our new episode of the UTD Podcast, which was released in full via the United App on Monday. 

“I came on up front in one of the games against Reading at Old Trafford and I probably should have scored as well,” laughs John. “It was big Marcus Hannaman in goal and I wouldn’t say it was a good save, but Marcus Hannaman came out, he was a big unit and he stopped it. 

“I will always remember, it was Louis Saha who said to me one day, shaking his head, ‘Sheasy, how can you do this, how can you play in so many positions?’ It was that type of thing and I remember saying ‘I’m not really sure, Louis, to be honest’. But I think it was just a case of being comfortable on the ball, being able to take instructions, understand, hopefully I used to think the manager thought ‘he is quite bright, clever, and can adapt to things’. 

“When you have people like Louis, a top striker and French international, he was shaking his head, saying it was amazing and asking how I was able to do it. People would say, ‘you are playing in so many positions, does it stop you, does it stop your growth?’. But for me it was the exact opposite. It was amazing for me. The manager would just go, ‘Sheasy can do do it, Sheasy could do that’.”