A NEW EPISODE of The Football Family podcast — a collection of longform interviews with Irish footballers of past and present — is now available to The42 members.
Our guest on Episode 13 is Patrick Cregg, who has been working as assistant manager at St Patrick’s Athletic since September following Stephen O’Donnell’s appointment as boss.
Patrick Cregg playing for Arsenal against Manchester United at Old Trafford in 2004.
Source: EMPICS Sport
The pair were together as teenagers at Arsenal, where Cregg managed to make a first-team breakthrough under Arsene Wenger in 2004, when the Gunners were Premier League champions on the back of their ‘Invincibles’ campaign.
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The midfielder from Dublin made three League Cup appearances, one of which came as an 18-year-old in a quarter-final against Manchester United at Old Trafford.
“A very calm man, from the experience I would’ve had with him,” he said of Wenger. “Very relaxed. I remember being on the bench against Manchester United in the Carling Cup. We were losing 1-0 and I just remember how calm he was. He just kept saying ‘we’ll get the next goal’.
“I remember coming in at half-time, everyone was just sitting there and I’m thinking in my head: is anyone going to say anything? Obviously I wasn’t going to say anything but at 1-0 down… the manager sort of stayed outside and then came in and spoke, but it was so calm and relaxed, it was like, ‘oh wow’.
“That was obviously his method. Maybe towards the end he might have changed because the pressure might have changed him and got so much, but at that time he could do no wrong. The team that had won the league the year before were phenomenal.”