Not many footballers make the jump from pulling on the boots to calling the shots quite so suddenly. But Jonjo Shelvey, the former Liverpool, Newcastle United and England midfielder has done exactly that.
Having only arrived in Dubai last summer, signing for third-tier club Arabian Falcons FC, the 34-year-old announced his retirement from playing on April 15 and is now the club's manager. He has already set about laying down the foundations for promotion to the First Division next season.
In an exclusive interview with The National, Shelvey explains how the appointment came about, what he believes the Arabian Falcons project can become and how he and his players remained in the country during the Iran conflict safe under the UAE's protection.
Shelvey has never hidden his coaching ambitions. Earlier this year, he turned down the assistant manager's job at Turkish club Konyaspor as he did not want to uproot his family again. As it happened, he did not have to leave Dubai for his coaching career to begin. When former manager Harry Agombar, his old Arsenal youth academy teammate who brought him to the club, took a holiday during a break in fixtures, Shelvey found himself running things on the training pitch.
"Harry went away on holiday because we didn't have a game and then I literally got asked to just take the training and got a great response from the lads," he says. "I'd been taking the sessions for about a month before I actually got the job, and after the first day of the training session, the owners approached me and just said 'We'd like to give you the job.'"
Shelvey accepted only after making sure Agombar was comfortable with the move. "I had just said that I'd only take it if it was OK with Harry because at the end of the day, Harry bought me out here and I owed that out of respect."
Agombar, 33, has since taken on the role of sporting director at the club and the Arabian Falcons project continues with both working together in hopes of achieving promotion next season. “Obviously, I’ve known Harry since I was seven, eight years old. So for us to be leading that football club is amazing,” Shelvey says.
Shelvey has had an office installed at home so that he can review footage as soon as he returns from training each day. "I'm in the office all day reviewing training, preparing the next session for tomorrow and so on, and then watching the opposition.”
With six England caps and more than 250 Premier League appearances, Shelvey says football had been part of his life for too long for him to step away completely.
“I always wanted to stay in football. I'd done a bit of punditry work earlier on this year, enjoyed it, but I knew that probably I needed to be that day-to-day [figure] on the training pitch for me to be given this role," he says.
"I'm really grateful and it's kept me in the game in terms of being in charge and bringing out the leadership I've obviously had from the experience playing. I obviously didn't realise it would happen so soon.”
Instant impact
Shelvey's appointment is already bearing fruit. The Falcons are unbeaten in eight games in the UAE Second Division, sitting in fourth place on 41 points but 17 points off leaders Palm City 365 – "they've got a lot of financial backing. In leagues like this, it helps massively" - so Shelvey has set about fortifying the defence as his main focus.
"Even when I was playing, we were probably more of a possession-based team. We concede a lot of goals. I've sort of shored that up defensively, but obviously I'm trying not to take away the way the lads know how to play."
So how does he like to play? "I like fast, dynamic football. I play in a 4-3-3 [formation] and I like to get the ball forward fast and I like to hurt teams in behind,” he says. “And then when we're out of possession, I make us hard to beat. One thing I will always demand is the hard work and discipline from the players when we haven't got the ball."
Managerial influences
Shelvey worked under some of the most talented managers in English football, yet two have been particularly influential in how he sees the game.
"I always go back to Eddie Howe in terms of his intensity and his level of detail. I've tried to sort of take a lot of what he did with Newcastle into this. And also, I'll have to mention Michael Laudrup when I was at Swansea in terms of the way he plays attacking football. I like the way he played attacking football, and so I'm trying to like sort of get a blend of both of them."
The players have noticed the difference. Among those in the squad is Ravel Morrison, the former Manchester United midfielder whose career has taken him from Old Trafford to clubs across Italy, Sweden, the United States and now Dubai. Morrison told The National that Shelvey’s relationship with the squad has made the transition easier. "He knows all the lads and all the lads like him. So I think he'll do really well being a manager."
Morrison is also keen to be part of whatever comes next, with his contract up at the end of the season. "We've got a good project going forward. There's a lot of things going well at the club at the minute and the staff are great. The owners, everything's really good," he says.
Captain and defender Abdul Baki Awudu is in no doubt about what the new manager has brought. "Jonjo has played at a very high level and he has been coached by a lot of high-profile coaches, so he's bringing that experience here to help us develop to that level as well. It's really good for us."
Shelvey is under no illusions that he has a steep learning curve ahead of him. "I'm not coming to the manager role just because I played the game. That's just not the case. I'm still learning. I'm still learning constantly.” Happy to be given the chance and determined to succeed, Shelvey then confessed he has bigger plans. “Eventually, I do want to go into Europe and manage at the highest level possible.”
Safe in Dubai
In Shelvey's last interview with The National, published February 26, he described how safe he and his family felt in Dubai while also doubling down on his criticism of the UK. Two days after we published, Iran began launching missiles on Gulf countries in retaliation for joint US-Israeli strikes on Tehran. The UAE bore the brunt of Iran's ire.
Despite the tense geopolitical situation, leaving the UAE was never a consideration for Shelvey and his players.
"People away from Dubai that are not experiencing it here think it's something that is so dangerous, but no, it's all right," Shelvey says.
"My kids were a little bit scared at the start when it first started happening, but now they're fine and they're all back to school now. I think you have to give credit to the UAE for how they've dealt with everything.
"But no, we've felt safe and we've just carried on living as normal. So we've just done everything that the UAE have asked and I can only thank them from the bottom of my heart in terms of how safe they've made me and my family feel."
Team bonding has been a priority for Shelvey since he joined Arabian Falcons. "When I first came to the club, when I was a player, I said to the team that whenever we win three games on the bounce, I'll take them for dinner. We've done that on two separate occasions now," Shelvey says.
From an African restaurant to Wagamama's in the Dubai Mall and a go-karting trip, Shelvey has invested in building something beyond just a football team.
Awudu summed up the mood in the camp: "Now we look like a family. Everyone is together and we always have happy moments together."
