O’Shea returns to the top flight with Ipswich

TEMPLEOGUE native and Ipswich Town captain is preparing for life back in the Premier League after giving an exclusive interview with Ipswich based newspaper East Anglian Daily Times.

With previous spells at Burnley and West Brom under his belt, O’Shea was signed by Ipswich ahead of the 2024/25 season as they prepared for life in the top flight of English football.

Ultimately things did not go to plan for the club with the team being relegated, but O’Shea has since become a stalwart for the side and is now club captain, he was among their best performers last year as the team finished second in the Championship, earning themselves promotion back to the top flight at the first time of asking.

O’Shea was asked how the club will approach Premier League football now, with aims to learn from that debut campaign two years ago.

“It’s never easy, the Premier League, especially as a newly promoted side. You see the statistics and you see how hard it is to stay in the division.

“I think for us as a group, as the gaffer’s touched upon in some of his interviews, we’re going to have to adapt at times and not be so set on playing a certain way.

‘We’ve got to give ourselves the best chance to win each game. The main aim is getting as many points on the board as quickly as possible.

If we’re not the best footballing side on the day, we’ve got to be the best side when it comes to winning our duels, winning our tackles, showing that hunger, that fight, just the desire to want to win and to run around for each other.

“That’s a lot of what this club is. We need to show that, we need to deliver that.

‘And it’s got to be every game. You can’t take your foot off the gas in this league for a second, because if you do you get punished.”

A keen GAA player in his youth the former Jude’s clubman O’Shea returns to action in the Premier League on the 22nd of August as his team will host their opening game of the season against Sunderland.