Looking back on his Wolves career, Gary O’Neil has named his biggest regret.
O’Neil’s time as Wolves manager is likely to come to an end next week. It has been reported that O’Neil will likely be sacked from Wolves no matter the result against West Ham on Monday.
While Graham Potter and David Moyes are not interested in the job, a suitable candidate will probably be found soon.
With O’Neil likely to be out of a job within the week, many would assume he has many regrets about how this situation transpired.
However, when asked if he would have done anything differently, it may not be the answer many of the Molineux faithful expected.
Gary O’Neil regrets playing Pedro Neto against Fulham
While it may seem a while ago now, Wolves were flying under O’Neil back in March. The club were in the race for European football and were about to take part in an FA Cup quarter-final against Coventry.
Yet, successive matches against Newcastle and Fulham would end up costing the club.
Injuries plagued the backend of Wolves’ season and these two games saw some of the club’s biggest stars fall to the sidelines.
However, no were perhaps more costly than Pedro Neto. Despite picking up a knock against Newcastle, O’Neil opted to play the winger against Fulham where he subsequently picked up a two-month injury, ruling him out of the FA Cup clash.
Now, when O’Neil was asked if he would have done anything differently with Wolves he simply said: “Not play Pedro Neto against Fulham.”
Wolves’ defeat to Coventry was when it all fell apart for Gary O’Neil
The defeat to Coventry completely derailed O’Neil’s career. Since then, the club have only won four games in all competitions despite being just minutes away from Wembley.
It is crazy how this one match eventually snowballed into the current crisis the club finds itself in but if Neto was fit that day, Wolves would have likely picked up a result.
We will never know if a victory that day would have changed much, but it may have helped stop the awful form that eventually carried over into this campaign.
However, managers must deal with the situation and unfortunately for O’Neil, he has not been able to halt the neverending poor form the Old Gold find themselves in.