Linfield star hits out at decline of former club and says: 'It hurts like hell'

Chris Shields has described the collapse of former club Dundalk as "mad" and says the rapid decline "hurts like hell". The Lilywhites have claimed just one win from 15 games this season to sit six points adrift of Drogheda United having already gone through two managers this season.

Noel King resigned this week after just four games in charge. Head of football operations Brian Gartland has also exited Oriel Park.

And when you add in the number of managerial changes (six) and ownership changes (four) since 2018, it’s clear the club has become a byword for crisis. Not too long ago the opposite was true, Dundalk winning five league titles in the 2010s, as well as twice making the Europa League group stages.

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Shields - who joined Linfield from Dundalk in 2021 - was skipper for the second of those European runs and is a symbol of everything that used to be good about the Oriel Park club. Now, from the distance of three years, he looks at his former side’s plight with a mixture of bewilderment and pain.

During his time with Dundalk, he also won five SSE Airtricity League titles, three FAI Cups, three League Cups, three FAI President’s Cups, a Unite The Union Champions Cup and a Leinster Senior Cup.

Shields told the Irish Mirror: “Once you spend time in a place like Dundalk, the club and the town get under your skin. Your fondness for the place never fades. So it’s just unbelievable how we have gone from being on the brink of the treble in 2019 to where we are now. You say it is mad and it is precisely that.

“Where did all the European money go? Was it thrown frivolously away on players?

“What we built was a dynasty. Now we are at the foot of the table. How can you make sense of that? It hurts, hurts like hell, because I love the club and have so much time for so many people involved in it. The thing that is needed now is stability.

“We can’t wait more than five days to make a managerial appointment. Get the right person in right away. The candidates are still out there. The names are still in the file. Go get the right person.”

For Shields, the departures of Stephen O’Donnell as manager and Gartland has pained him, given that they were former team-mates. In O’Donnell’s case, a former housemate.

He added: “They were my captains at Dundalk, they gave everything for the club. I still say Stevie should not have been sacked. It was so sad to see him go, so sad to see Brian leave shortly afterwards.

“If anything Stevie over-achieved in that first season, getting them into Europe. That was why the criticism of him was so harsh. He’s a good manager – exactly the sort of man Dundalk need in charge right now. Because I’d be worried. Drogheda have a six-point lead over them and they also operate really well.

“There is always a fear for Dundalk surviving when you are up against a club and a management team like Drogheda’s, guys who are realists, experienced in surviving.

“That’s why the next managerial appointment has to be the right one because there is no guarantee we will get out of this.

“We are in a real battle and Shamrock Rovers coming to Oriel tonight will drive that message home.”

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