O'Neil sacked by Wolves: Where did it go wrong?

It was as recently as March that Gary O’Neil was being lauded in Wolverhampton and beyond, entertaining two routes into Europe with Wolves eighth in the Premier League table and with only Coventry City standing between them and a trip to Wembley.

Nine months on and O’Neil has won only three Premier League matches since then. Beaten in dramatic circumstances by Coventry in the FA Cup, conceding twice in stoppage time, they are in the relegation zone. Fourteen points from the last 27 games. Unseemly scuffles at full-time.

Fans turned and bosses finally lost faith after a 2-1 defeat to Ipswich that made it four defeats in a row. Four points from safety, change was needed.

The story of how it unravelled for O’Neil, a coach who might have fancied his next job could have been as England manager had that final phase of last season played out differently, is both simple and complicated. There were certainly mitigating factors.

The trajectory at Wolves has changed in recent seasons, a club seemingly contracting. The big investment stopped and there will be some sympathy as a result. Indeed, O’Neil only inherited the job because his predecessor had been so frustrated by the situation.

That trend continued in the summer when captain Max Kilman and star winger Pedro Neto were sold. The club will argue that they committed £28m to sign a new striker in Jorgen Strand Larsen and a series of prospects who they have far from given up on.

But it is a far cry from the days of Ruben Neves and Joao Moutinho, Diogo Jota and Raul Jimenez, top-seven finishes and European nights at Molineux under Nuno Espirito Santo. Wolves cut ties with him at the end of a season in which they finished 13th.

That was a team that knocked Liverpool and Manchester United out of the FA Cup in the same season, picking up Premier League wins over Tottenham, Chelsea and Arsenal as a newly-promoted side before doing the double over Manchester City the following year. All of which helps to explain why the excuse of Wolves’ awkward fixture list never really landed. Fans had become used to troubling the best teams, but the first eight games delivered one point. Those same fixtures brought 11 for O’Neil himself just last season.

It is that comparison – between last season, one in which Neto started fewer than half of the games, and this – that damned O’Neil in the end. Performances and results should not have deteriorated so dramatically. After all the praise, he lost his way.

The players were culpable too, of course. This season has featured a series of inexplicable errors, some of the most high-profile ones made by the most experienced players in the squad, Jose Sa, Craig Dawson and Mario Lemina among them.

The sight of Lemina wrestling with his own team-mates and squaring up to assistant manager Shaun Derry as he trudged from the field at the London Stadium might generously be described as someone showing they care. But he was the captain at the time, before subsequently being replaced.

Some of Wolves’ displays were comically chaotic. There was the 5-3 reverse at Brentford and the hat-trick of penalties conceded at home to Bournemouth. All four goals they gave away at Everton came from set-piece situations. A recipe for relegation.

Wolves’ record defending set-piece situations has been particularly poor. In total, they have conceded 16 goals that way this season. That is seven more than any other team. In fact, no Premier League team has ever conceded more at this stage of a season.

Maybe O’Neil will feel let down given the mistakes were made by players he had trusted. Maybe they will feel let down by the club’s lack of ambition and the coach’s tactics. It is that sense that O’Neil erred tactically, supposedly his strength, that undermined him.

Wolves looked far too open from the very first game at Arsenal. They have let in 40 goals in 16 games, their worst start to a top-flight season in 60 years and more than anyone else.

That reflects a lack of quality but also a misjudgement of the requirements by O’Neil. This was his first pre-season as a head coach, a chance to shape his vision with time on the grass in the summer to hone his ideas rather than merely make-do and mend.

This was precisely how he was talking before a ball had been kicked. He spoke of European ambitions. The top six will be the top six and we will be in the group below that,” he told Sky Sports. “We want to fight as hard as we can to get to the six.”

If that seems fanciful now, the problem was that this thinking fed into his tactics and team selection. This was his Wolves 2.0 and with the pressure momentarily lifted, he wanted to showcase his progressive coaching skills. That always looked a gamble.

At Arsenal, he picked a back four that had the relatively inexperienced Yerson Mosquera and Toti Gomes at its heart. Against Chelsea, Rayan Ait-Nouri was used again at left-back but seemed to approach it like a No 10, out of position repeatedly in a 6-2 defeat.

Ait-Nouri is a talent for whom even wing-back feels too restrictive at times. Julen Lopetegui had recognised his ability but did not trust him in his defence. But with Hugo Bueno allowed to leave on loan, the only left-footed alternative in that position was Toti.

And yet, Toti was often needed at centre-back, one of only three natural options there following Mosquera’s injury. O’Neil even pushed Lemina into that role. It was all a symptom of slightly muddled thinking, squad-building that just seemed a little off.

There had been optimism that Wolves could find value in the market, sporting director Matt Hobbs seeing his position strengthened by some smart signings in 2023. The theory was that being less tethered to Jorge Mendes allowed the club to be savvier.

Lemina – who was recently stripped of the captaincy after clashing with opponents and team-mates alike – and Dawson were bargains. Joao Gomes was regarded as a brilliant investment. But perhaps Wolves took too many risks in the summer. Pedro Lima was one for the future. Rodrigo Gomes may well be too. Neither appear ready to help much right now.

The same could be said of the decision to sign Sam Johnstone for £10m, ostensibly to replace Sa only for the Portuguese to regain his place despite erratic performances – and then lose it again. Given the gaps elsewhere, such spending was a little strange.

The disconnect was best summed up by the signing of another Brazilian midfielder Andre for up to £21m late in the window. For the club, it was an irresistible opportunity to acquire a quality young player with the high likelihood of making money on the deal.

But O’Neil was already struggling to satisfy Tommy Doyle’s demands for game-time in the middle of the field and still wanted a centre-half of some experience to shore things up at the back. Dara O’Shea was keen but Wolves would not pay what Ipswich paid.

That decision was defensible from a financial perspective even if it left O’Neil with a lopsided squad in terms of talent – as long as Wolves could stay in the Premier League. But O’Neil’s subsequent struggles leave those recruitment calls looking misguided.

When the strategy of the sporting director is being questioned, when the supporters are chanting for the owners Fosun to depart, it usually follows that the head coach pays the price. What happens next will probably define where blame is eventually apportioned.

Such is the talent at Wolves, Matheus Cunha the most obvious example despite him too being involved in Saturday’s flare-ups, there is every reason to believe that if they can just get some of the basics right at the back then they still have the firepower in attack to pull clear of their relegation rivals before May.

If not, and the next man in charge is equally unable to cut out the errors, Wolves are doomed. Either way, the excitement among supporters upon their Premier League return, ignited by Nuno and briefly resurrected by O’Neil, already feels an age ago now.