DEAN Shiels can remember not playing more clearly than he remembers playing. He searches his memory to try to recall his last appearance for Northern Ireland – he thinks it was against Wales, but isn't 100% sure.
Yet he can remember, vividly, not playing for his club, Hibernian.
In particular, the memory of Saturday morning running sessions in a park with four fellow outcasts is raw. Which isn't surprising: it was less than three months ago. The arrival of
a new manager, however, has seen Shiels return to the side with a vengeance, and with a clearly defined role behind strikers Colin Nish and Steven Fletcher.
He describes what Mixu Paatelainen wants him to do, the runs he wants him to make, in such detail that his manager can only shake his head and with mock anger and say: "He can't keep a secret."
Shiels' indiscretion is understandable, though. It owes to his enthusiasm, which expresses itself as a joie de vivre he had forgotten under the previous manager, John Collins. It is significant that he singles out "fun" as the biggest change to training. But an even bigger change is that he gets to train with the first team at all. He reveals that in Collins' final couple of months at Easter Road he was relegated to those Saturday morning running sessions. The manager had already told him to look for another club, but "I never really thought about moving until John Collins' last month or two," says Shiels. "It was coming up to November and he had me doing running with the reserves on Saturday mornings, when the team was playing in the afternoon.
"It was disappointing, especially when, before (Collins] arrived, I was moving forward – then I just stopped, and I'm running round a pitch with four other people."
Shiels' companions on the Saturday morning runs were Keegan Ayre, Damon Gray and Sean Lynch, with Gareth Evans in charge. "When that started happening, well, you know it's time to move on," says Shiels. "It was still quite early for the transfer window, though. And it was only for a two- or three-week period because then, all of a sudden, (Collins] left."
The 23-year-old's career was reignited, it seems, the moment Paatelainen took charge. The Finn selected him for his first game, against Inverness Caley Thistle, and Shiels repaid him by scoring a hat-trick.
The beginning of it, though, was not actually Paatelainen's appointment – it turns out he had been monitoring Shiels, in reserve matches, even before he replaced Collins. "Every time I've seen him play for Hibs, for the first team or the reserves, I thought he had great attitude," says Paatelainen. "I felt he was a player I wanted to use. I knew he hadn't played too much before, so I thought putting him in the starting 11 would give him a lift.
"I saw quite a few reserve games. Every time he played he was full of energy, effort, encouraging others. He has a fantastic attitude, that's why he's a good player. He's a goal scorer, his technical ability is good, he passes the ball well, creates chances."
Paatelainen's admiration extends to the way his player has overcome an operation to remove his right eye. "He's gone through a lot, but on the other hand he'd lived with (sightlessness in one eye] a long period; he'd got used to it. But for someone to go through something like that, it teaches you a lot. You become a stronger character."
The Hibs manager says he is looking forward to today's game with Aberdeen, since "all our targets are short-term." One game at a time? "I'm trying not to use the cliché," he smiles. But he thinks his players are beginning to play the way he wants them to – "or for one half, anyway," he adds, referring to Wednesday's 4-2 victory over Gretna, which saw the SPL's bottom side stage an alarming second half recovery.
Shiels, for one, seems to know what he's doing, and it is fundamental to Paatelainen's game plan, which is to "pass the ball more directly, not lumping it forward, but through the midfield, with plenty of movement in the midfield, so (midfielders] become available."
It is where Shiels, as his attacking midfield player, is expected to come in. Not that he's talking about it.
The full article contains 742 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
