Image source, Getty Images
Image caption, Jacob Devaney has started 11 Scottish Premiership games for St Mirren since joining on loan from Manchester United in February
On-loan Manchester United midfielder Jacob Devaney did not want a Scottish Premiership relegation play-off final to become part of his learning experience at St Mirren. The 18-year-old made that clear when he spoke exclusively to BBC Sport last week about his time in Paisley.
That scenario now seems likely, after St Mirren suffered a 3-0 home defeat to Kilmarnock at the weekend, leaving Craig McLeish’s side four points behind the Ayrshire club before Tuesday’s penultimate match of the season away to Aberdeen. If it happens, Devaney is expected to handle it with composure.
Devaney is a young man who knows his own mind. The Barnsley-born Republic of Ireland international went against his parent club’s wishes to accept the chance to join St Mirren for the second half of the season. While several teammates from Manchester United’s Under-21 side—which he captained in the first half of the campaign—have struggled for regular minutes during their own loan moves, Devaney has started for the 13th time against Kilmarnock. Interim manager Craig McLeish has trusted him to anchor the midfield despite his youth, just as predecessor Stephen Robinson did before moving to Aberdeen in March.
“St Mirren came about really late,” Devaney said of the deadline-day loan switch. “There had been conversations with Travis [Binnion, then in charge of United’s youth teams] and Stephen Torpey, the head of academy, who said I’d had a really positive start to the season and thought the next step was to go out on loan. I had somewhere else lined up, which the club wanted me to pursue, but when I heard about St Mirren, it was an opportunity I wanted to take. I’ve grown up having an eye on the Scottish league and I thought it would be a great opportunity. I’m happy with how it’s gone.”
Family Irish connections tend to make Celtic of interest, so it is a pleasant coincidence that the biggest away game Devaney has played in, and the biggest standalone match, came against Martin O’Neill’s side. Both games—in the Premiership and the Scottish Cup semi-final—ended in defeat, the former by a single goal, the latter after extra-time. But according to Devaney, the league game at Celtic Park felt familiar.
“It was the first game where we were driving up to the stadium and it reminded me a lot of Old Trafford,” he said. “When I went to games there as a kid, you’ve got the stalls with the scarfs and there’s hundreds of people outside the stadium watching you walk in. Playing in front of 60,000 is not something I had done before, but that was another thing that attracted me to this league. Once you get the first minute out the way and you’ve taken it all in, you blank it out. I’ve said that to my family, although they don’t quite understand how you can do that. For the level I want to go and play at, playing in front of crowds like that is obviously going to help.”
Image source, Getty Images
Image caption, Jacob Devaney was called up by the Republic of Ireland Under-21 squad in March
Devaney spent the first quarter of the season in central defence at United before switching to his preferred central midfield slot. He even started at full-back at times, which he believes is part of his United education.
“I see myself as a leader,” he said. “If you put me anywhere on the pitch, I’d like to think I’d go and do a job. Coming into United as an under-nine, you play a bit of everywhere; centre-back, right-back, centre-midfield in my case. It’s the way we are brought up, so we can all play in different positions.”