It seems a lifetime ago now that Gary O’Neil was Wolves manager.
The Englishman left the club last December after overseeing an awful start to the 2024/25, leaving Wolves languishing in the bottom three.
Wolves had been dealt an incredibly tough start in terms of the fixtures.
But it was widely felt that Gary O’Neil should have got more points on the board than the nine that he actually did.
A 2-1 home defeat to Ipswich Town was the final straw for Fosun, with there having been clear signs that O’Neil had lost the dressing room, with players acting up.
Wolves brought in Vitor Pereira to replace him, and the appointment has been a success so far. Pereira easily kept the club in the Premier League, although the challenge from the eventual relegated sides was poor.
O’Neil has done a new interview about his time at Wolves and spoken about his successor – and also made an interesting suggestion.
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Gary O’Neil wanted to get to January at Wolves but concedes he didn’t ‘earn the right’, as he drops Vitor Pereira verdict
O’Neil’s sacking after the Ipswich game came as little surprise.
Sadly, he was just unable to get consistent results, and Wolves looked as though they could concede three or four times a game.
O’Neil recently commented on Wolves’ defensive woes under him, and he suggested ‘bad luck’ in losing players to injury was a factor.
The situation became untenable, and he had to go.
But in a new interview O’Neil – who was recently interviewed for the Leicester job but was unsuccessful – says that he had been hoping to get to January, where he could perhaps have brought in new players.
He said: “It can change very quickly and the truth is always in the middle. In the end at Wolves we weren’t able to arrest the slide. I would have loved to get to January. But you have to earn the right to get the window.
“The club were aware of the issues. We’d had detailed discussions around what we needed, what we were going to try to do. I guess people would expect me to feel negatively about that, but I don’t.”
O’Neil took a keen interest in Wolves after his sacking, hoping the club wouldn’t be relegated.
Like many Wolves fans, the job Pereira did after replacing him wasn’t lost on O’Neil.
“Vitor came in and he gave them unbelievable stability, got them some fantastic results, saw the players respond to the managerial change as well, which is often the case,” he added.
Gary O’Neil had to go when he did
There was simply no way O’Neil could have stayed any longer at Wolves.
He did great work in his first season, but sadly 2024/25 was just terrible and arguably, he should have gone weeks before he actually did. He was certainly given ample opportunity to turn things around.
| Gary O’Neil in the Premier League for Wolves in 2024/25 |
| Games managed – 16 |
| Wins – 2 |
| Draws – 3 |
| Losses – 11 |
| Goals scored – 24 |
| Goals conceded – 40 |
| PL points taken – 9 |
It really was a case of a change in manager being required.
Because Wolves still had a quality squad, and actually should have taken more points than they did before O’Neil did finally leave. There was no way Wanderers should have been where they were with the players they had at the time.
His suggestion is that he might have improved the situation had he got to January and got new players in, but there had been far too many abject performances to risk keeping him in place any longer.