Lonergan discusses his transition into coaching after an extensive playing career across the football pyramid.
Header image: Bernard Platt via Wigan Today
Few goalkeepers have experienced the full range of what the English football pyramid has to offer like Wigan Athletic’s Andy Lonergan. Lonergan made his first-team debut at the tender age of 16 in 2000 and has seen everything English football has to offer in the intervening period.
He is now making the transition into a coaching career as a player/coach with the Latics. He spoke to Goalkeeper.com to give an insight into how working alongside the likes of Alisson Becker and Jordan Pickford has influenced his coaching as he takes the first steps in his new career.
The former Liverpool and Everton shot-stopper joined Wigan at the start of the 2024/25 season as the goalkeeping coach, whilst also being eligible to play if required. Despite a change in his role in the dressing room, Lonergan has enjoyed the challenge of adapting to being a coach.
“It's been brilliant. It's been a challenge, but not a difficult challenge. Just a challenge of coming up against things I've never come up against before. Not so much the goalkeeping side of things but being on the management staff and not the playing staff, that's obviously a massive change. But it's a good group of lads and I felt like I settled in after day one.”
Lonergan comes into his new role as a coach with over 400 games of Football League experience. Although he has participated in thousands of training sessions throughout his career, he admits that he only began to focus on what the coaches brought to each session at the end of his career.
“Obviously, that experience has led me here,” he continued. “But I'm learning every day. In my 20-year career, I've taken part in a lot of sessions, but you don't always start taking notice of what the coach does until the end of your career.
“So, trying to remember a lot of sessions from the past, you obviously don’t remember them all! I'm taking bits off every different coach I’ve worked with and trying to put it together to put my spin on it.”
Lonergan believes it is important to be adaptable when working with the goalkeeping group in order to get the best out of them. As such, his approach will change depending on the needs of his players, and he’ll test and try different methods and nuance the sessions to give it as much match realism as possible.
“I want to be the best coach I can be. That's my target. But day by day I'm finding my style, not only my style, but the style to suit my goalkeepers. I will put on a session, say a crossing session if we’re playing a big direct, big team.
“But a crossing session can be pretty bland, you're just kicking balls in and a cross is a cross. So I use low crosses, high crosses, just try to put a bit of a spin on that and it went really well and it's the first time I've done it. So that's something I'll put in the book as something to do again.”
“I'm just trying to find my way and my style for what suits each goalkeeper because I've been at clubs where, if your number one gets a session put on, the two and the three do it without any consideration for what they might need individually. Whereas I try to adapt my sessions.
“My number three's six foot seven, so he's a little slower at getting down to low balls as my other two goalkeepers. I tend to work on him getting down lower, while the others don't need that. So in the same session, they'll be doing different things within a similar practice.”
In many ways, the role of the goalkeeper is almost unrecognisable from when Lonergan made his debut, with goalkeepers at all levels needing to be increasingly comfortable in possession.
However, Lonergan believes the fundamentals of the role remain the most important element of goalkeeping.
“One of my mottos is that the aim of the game doesn't change. You've got 10 outfield players (plus a goalkeeper!) trying to get that ball past you and you've got to keep it out.
“That's a bit of an old-school mentality now, but that's goalkeeping. If someone asks me what goalkeeping is, I'll say it's keeping the ball out of the net. We all know, especially the higher up you go, the more it's changed and it's just ridiculous.
“When I went to Fulham [in 2015], if anyone had said to me, right, from now on, goalkeepers will not be shelling the ball, they'll be passing it in their own box, getting it back, standing on the ball, playing it to the number six, I'd say, no, you're crackers. Now, if you kick long, you're crackers.
“We have a manager who really wants to play. But if you're going against a high-pressing man-for-man in the space, he's probably going to be passing in behind. We've got a goalkeeper who can do both and is really, really efficient in going in behind. He's got a great range of passing.”
Lonergan has witnessed the full spectrum of goalkeeping ability during his career, having played in the Third Division with Darlington and alongside England and Brazil’s number ones, giving him a unique perspective on what sets the very best goalkeepers apart. The now-41 year old was part of the lockdown Liverpool squad that secured the Premier League title, and he also won UEFA Super Cup 2019 FIFA Club World Cup 2019 medals alongside Alisson and Adrian.
Whilst two goalkeepers may have a similar technical ability, Lonergan believes the mentality of the very best goalkeepers, and how they respond to mistakes, makes them special.
“I think a lot of the goalkeepers are very similar - they can all make saves, they can all kick it, catch it, and do the basics well. I think Pickford and Alisson especially are technically brilliant. They are technically the best in the world.
“But I think their mentality is what separates them. Their mental strength is so far ahead of anyone else I've ever seen.”
“If the top goalkeepers make a mistake, I'm not saying they don't care, but the mistake's gone. Whereas I think a lot of goalkeepers that maybe haven’t got to that level yet might dwell on it a little bit longer.
“Those big boys, they've got so much confidence in their ability. The mistakes, they probably think, well, that'll never happen again. Whereas many of us goalkeepers, we're thinking, I hope that doesn't happen again.”
After 25 years as a professional, Lonergan is now looking forward to a new chapter in his career as a coach. Although he is not sure he will be able to spend the same amount of time as a coach, the ambition to reach the highest level possible remains the same as during his playing career.
“I would do well to do 20 years, I'm kicking about 2,000 balls a day. In the short term, I want to get as much experience as I can and learn from my mistakes, because every session has a mistake.
“You can try and hide it, try and learn from stuff that doesn't go well, and what does go well. Like anyone in football, you want to go to the top level. Whether that's an option or a possibility, who knows, but I think that's the ambition.”
When you’ve seen as much as Lonergan has, there’s a war chest of advice waiting to be opened. But the piece he picks out are words that have stayed with him throughout his career. Lonergan laughs and recalls the words of former Preston and Celtic goalkeeper, Jonathan Gould, who told him to “Just keep that f****** ball out of that f****** net. If it’s your face, if it’s your a**, it doesn’t matter. Just get in the way of that ball.”
Andy Lonergan may be moving into a new phase of his footballing life but, in his eyes, the fundamentals remain the same. Those he mentors from now on will get the best of both the old and the new.
