Wolves are rock bottom of the Premier League table – and now, talkSPORT pundit Simon Jordan has offered his thoughts on the situation at the club.
Wanderers crashed to a 3-1 defeat against Aston Villa at the weekend, after taking the lead at Villa Park.
Fans were left frustrated again as Wolves played well in the first-half, but then sat back and invited pressure.
Nothing much was expected of Wolves in the first few games of the season due to the difficulty of the fixtures. But Wolves relinquishing leads and dropping points has been cause for concern.
Earlier today, Gabby Agbonlahor stated that he felt Wolves would be OK this season if they can consistently play like they did in the first-half against Villa.
A bit later on Simon Jordan was talking about Wolves – and he actually ahs some sympathy for O’Neil.
Simon Jordan says Gary O’Neil has been ‘disadvantaged’ at Wolves as he makes prediction
Wolves have taken just one point from their first five games, and it does not get any easier in the coming weeks.
It is Liverpool up next for Wolves at Molineux, then it’s Brentford away, followed by Manchester City at home and then Brighton away to close out October.
Andy Thompson has called for Wolves to become more ‘horrible’ on the pitch and start being more direct in order to try and get results.
We will see if O’Neil changes his approach, and one man who does have some sympathy for the Molineux head coach is Simon Jordan.
Jordan feels that O’Neil has had it tough due to losing key players, and that Fosun can’t expect too much after the club’s summer transfer window.
He said: “If the owners are demanding of him that he puts the team in the top echelons of the Premier League and judge him by those standards, then of course not. That’s not fair. You can’t sell your better players, bank £100m because you’ve overspent previously and make the current manager the victim of your expectations.”
Jordan added that, on the flip side, O’Neil would have walked over broken glass for another Premier League job even if someone said there would be a bit of pressure and that players would need to be sold.
He then added: “The bottom line is, he has been disadvantaged. He’s had better players being sold that have been developed.
“These new players come in, they’ll need time to develop and find the formation that they want.
“I think Wolves will be fine. I think Wolves are a decent side.”
Prior to this, Jordan had suggested that it would not be fair of Fosun to expect O’Neil to get Wolves challenging for a top-half finish after selling Max Kilman and Pedro Neto.
O’Neil deserves some sympathy, but he needs results now
It was a very frantic end to the summer transfer window for Wolves.
Kilman was never replaced, and Wolves brought into Rodrigo Gomes and Carlos Forbs as potential Neto replacements, but they will need time to settle and develop.
Fosun surely cannot expect Wolves to be challenging for a top-half finish given how the summer window went.
But there will be some Wolves fans at this point who will suggest that Fosun actually don’t really care about the club pushing up into the top-half.
Some have long had the feeling that, so long as Wolves don’t drop into the Championship, Fosun are quite happy with how things are going.