Gary O’Neil has just appeared on talkSPORT, where he made an interesting claim about the Wolves players when he first took over.
O’Neil was invited on to speak with Natalie Sawyer and Dean Saunders this morning to discuss Wolves’ brilliant season so far.
Wanderers currently lie 11th in the Premier League table and are rapidly bearing down on the 41 points they amassed last season, with 35 from 25 games.
It’s been a brilliant campaign so far and Gary O’Neil is now starting to receive more plaudits for his work.
Matt Jarvis praised the 40-year-old for the way he’s got the players to buy into him and his ideas.
This morning, O’Neil made an interesting claim about when he first came…
Gary O’Neil says Wolves players were doing things that were ‘quite random’ when he first came in
O’Neil’s appearance on talkSPORT this morning was intriguing.
The Wolves boss spoke brilliantly as usual, as he reflected on the club’s season so far and how he has been able to get the most out of his players.
At one point, he was asked about how he’s managed to improve most of the players -and made a pretty interesting comment.
He said: “To be honest, most of the improvement has come from an understanding of what the team are trying to do. It can be difficult to score goals when you don’t know where the team are trying to get to, or you don’t know when the ball is going to arrive in certain areas.
“A lot of the stuff they did when I arrived was quite random. Whereas now we seem to have a better understanding of where we’re trying to get to at each moment. The forward players know which areas to arrive in when the ball is in certain areas of the pitch.”
O’Neil comment highlights the lack of direction
It is very interesting to hear that O’Neil believes the Wolves players were doing random things when he first came in.
Given how close it was to the new season, O’Neil has said he was keen not to change too much at first because they’d obviously had a full season with Julen Lopetegui.
Seemingly then, O’Neil’s comments are actually a poor reflection on Lopetegui.
And to be honest, it was actually fairly evident that the Wolves players didn’t have much cohesion in the final third under the Spaniard.
The team was much better defensively under the previously manager than they were offensively, and there was a focus on behind hard to beat.
Now under O’Neil, Wolves are much more free-scoring, with the players appearing to have a much clearer idea of where they should be and when.
Hwang Hee-chan hailed O’Neil earlier in the season, branding him ‘very clever’, and he and his fellow attackers Pedro Neto and Matheus Cunha have all especially shone under his guidance this term.