BREAKING NEWS O’Neil sacked by Wolves after Ipswich defeat.

Wolves make decision to sack Gary O’Neil after poor start to the Premier League season; Wolves 19th in Premier League table after 16 matches; former Bournemouth boss joined the club in August 2023

O’Neil guided Wolves to 14th last season, but saw star players Pedro Neto and Max Kilman depart for Chelsea and West Ham in the summer.

Speaking after the Ipswich defeat, the former Bournemouth boss said his players “needed him” but acknowledged a run of four straight defeats had left his position under threat.
“That group need me to get them in a place where they’re ready to go and I’ll keep fighting for them,” he told Sky Sports in his final interview as head coach. “And that doesn’t mean I’m not going to get sacked. For every result, the chances of me losing my job will heighten, that’s nothing new – it doesn’t concern me.
“When I speak to Matt [Hobbs, sporting director] and Jeff [Shi, chairman], they’ll tell me I’ll need to do more otherwise they’ll replace me. That’s the same message for the players, you need to do more to compete at this level or you’ll get replaced. That’s how the business works.

“I’m not interested in my own position; I understand the work I perform every day and the circumstances we’re in. Today’s performance by this squad was the result of a lot of hard effort. “People can point fingers at me, but some of the blame has to fall on the players in those situations. When we get into good positions and spoon the ball off the pitch, I can’t help them. Only days after Mario Lemina was stripped of the Wolves captaincy for his response to a post-match altercation with Jarrod Bowen against West Ham, an incident which saw him push his own team-mates as they tried to calm him down before squaring up to Wolves assistant coach Shaun Derry, more ugly scenes marred the end of Saturday’s defeat to Ipswich.

O’Neil had promised there would be no repeat of the incident, but Rayan Ait-Nouri, who was issued a second yellow card after the whistle, had to be hauled down the tunnel by teammate Craig Dawson after colliding with Ipswich’s Wes Burns as boos rang out from the bleachers. “We take things like that very seriously, as you saw last week,” O’Neil said following the game. “It’s bothersome because we have enough to accomplish and fix right now without me having to spend time on things that happen off the pitch. “So the players must assume some responsibility. But I’ll help them with everything so we can return to work on Monday morning.”

‘Sad news but not unexpected’

Sky Sports News chief reporter Kaveh Solhekol:

“It’s sad news but not unexpected. O’Neil has been under a lot of pressure, there was talk that he may go after the game against West Ham.

“Yesterday, they were very unlucky, they conceded really late on from a set-piece and you just felt that was the end for him.

“Especially when, for the second game in a row, there were unsavoury scenes on the pitch afterwards.

“The way the players were behaving led to questions being asked about how much control O’Neil had over the dressing room.”

‘Wolves managers operate with one hand behind back’

Daily Mirror assistant editor Darren Lewis on Sunday Supplement:

“I have a lot of sympathy for O’Neil. At Wolves, you do a good job and they sell your best players.

“Julen Lopetegui stated that he could not do his job without the players who had been sold from under him. O’Neil came in, and he not only kept them going, but he did so fairly comfortably. “So, what do they do?” Sell two more of his greatest players, Pedro Neto and Max Kilman. “Wolves are sacking him, but as a Wolves supporter, I’m looking at the club and wondering why they’re hiring managers and asking them to do a job with one hand tied behind their back. “It’s 11 defeats in 16 games, and you can’t really expect to be a manager and keep your job. But there’s not a manager in the Premier League who would say they can work in circumstances where the chairman, the owners, the people who make the decisions are going to systematically remove your leaders at the back and your goalscorers, and stay in the top division.”

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