Former Premier League manager Tim Sherwood has claimed that no one else could have done what Gary O’Neil has at Wolves in his six months at the club.
Wanderers made it back-to-back wins in the Premier League on Sunday, as they beat Sheffield United 1-0 at Molineux thanks to a goal from Pablo Sarabia.
Wolves struggled in the second-half, but some resolute defending saw them hold out for all three points.
The three points temporarily moved Wolves up into eighth place in the table, before West Ham United’s 4-2 win over Brentford on Monday night pushed the club down to ninth. It is something no fan really saw coming when Gary O’Neil first came in just days before the season started.
It’s been an incredible season so far, and Tim Sherwood has hailed the job O’Neil has done at Molineux…
Tim Sherwood lauds Gary O’Neil and believes no one else could have got Wolves to where they are
O’Neil is now really starting to get a lot of people talking.
Wolves moving up to eighth in the table has shone a bit of a wider spotlight on the 40-year-old, with a lot more neutrals now acknowledging his contributions this season.
Micah Richards branded what he has done up to now as ‘staggering’ earlier this week, and there was also praise for the manager on Match of the Day 2 from Ashley Williams and Shay Given.
It has been a dream six months all things considered, and Sherwood has been so impressed. He said (via premierleague.com): “He’s done a brilliant job, Gary O’Neil. They’re on 38 points now, they’re safe. When he took over, the objective was to stay in the Premier League. They’ve done that already and now they can look upwards. Gary O’Neil would have laughed (at the prospect of Europe) when he went in there, but not now!
“I don’t think anyone could have gone in and done a better job than him. I think he’s galvanised them, he’s quickly recognised what group of players he has, what their attributes are and how he can play to the strengths of his team.”
Sherwood went on to talk about how Wolves have also done well this season when key players have been out injured, such as Pedro Neto, Hwang Hee-chan and Matheus Cunha, believing such injuries would normally be crippling.
Few could have done better than humble O’Neil
It is hard to imagine how anyone could have done any better with this Wolves team than O’Neil.
Hypothetically, you could have put an elite manager in the hot seat at Molineux and they would have struggled to achieve what O’Neil has.
He’s gotten so many things right, but it ultimately just feels as though the humility of O’Neil has gone an especially long way this season.
He came in with so many people unconvinced about his appointment, and lots of pundits wrote him and Wolves off instantly.
But he’s got his head down and worked his socks off – and the players have followed suit, buying into his tactics from the very beginning.
We saw a clip earlier in the season when O’Neil was in the dressimg room after the first 2-1 win over Tottenham Hotspur when he admitted that he ‘couldn’t do’ what the players did that day, and that humility probably goes down so well in the dressing room.
As tactically astute as he is, there is zero ego with O’Neil, and the love and respect he has from built up from the players is why the team is playing.