Inside Jack Lester’s Wales coaching call up as Sheffield United boss reveals delay

Jack Lester could have made his international ‘debut’ as a coach even before his stint helping Wales’ strikers over the recent international break, as the Sheffield United man’s reputation in the game continues to grow. Lester joined the Wales camp ahead of their recent clashes with South Korea and Latvia as Rob Page’s men continue their quest to qualify for next year’s European Championship.

The former boss of Nottingham Forest’s U23s and then Chesterfield’s first-team, Lester was the head of United’s academy before returning to senior coaching as an assistant of Blades chief Paul Heckingbottom. An advocate of specialist coaches, Heckingbottom has tasked Lester to work closely with the club’s forwards, mirroring the work done by Matt Duke, Mark Hudson and Stuart McCall with United’s goalkeepers, defenders and midfielders respectively.

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Under Lester’s guidance Iliman Ndiaye and Oli McBurnie enjoyed their best seasons in United colours last term to help the Blades to promotion and his good work was recognised by Wales after their former assistant coach Eric Ramsay stepped down due to personal reasons. Lester enjoyed his time away with the camp, during which Rob Page’s side drew with South Korea and then beat Latvia 2-0 - with former Blade David Brooks on the scoresheet for his country for the first time since recovering from his cancer diagnosis.

Lester and Page were teammates at United earlier in their careers and the relationship was key to Lester’s international call-up. “He knows Pagey well, they’re good mates,” Heckingbottom said. “He had been asked before and we spoke about it last season. Both me and Jack didn’t think it was right last season. It was a bloody single-mindness, if you like, to get promoted.

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“As much as I want people to do things like that, imagine if we’d fallen short [of promotion]? I’d have been thinking that was one of the reasons. It was just blinkers on to get us over the line. It’s not something that’s just come about, it’s been in the pipleline. I hope [there are benefits for United], definitely. I’ve spoken before about it, you can get in a bubble in football and for me, other interests are key.

“Other people to speak to. Especially if they’re achieving. It gets him out of our environment and just listening to me and Macca all the time. Different people, different ideas. He’s come back really excited about something he did with them. He loves what he does, and he came back with little things he’s picked up that worked really well with Wales. It freshens things up. But there has to be substance to what’s delivered. We work really hard to make sure the pieces of the jigsaw fit together.

“So not only is there individual help, support and coaching going off, but there has to be some coaching linked to the bigger picture in how the team plays, both in and out of possession. I think it’s getting that right that’s important and that, for me, makes a more skilled coach. Rather than just working with individuals and getting a player better with his left foot or his right. It’s bigger than that, and I think Jack’s enjoying linking it to our game and our team.”