To observers inside Wolves, Gary O’Neil’s appearance on Monday Night Football was the turning point.
O’Neil had been an underwhelming appointment, despite being a manager of the year contender last season after steering Bournemouth clear of relegation by outwitting far better resourced sides while playing entertaining football. But then, Bournemouth fans hadn’t much warmed to him either.
And the results at Wolves at the start of the season had done little to convince fans otherwise. Then he masterminded a stunning victory against Manchester City at the end of September, before returning to the south coast and the club many felt had harshly sacked him, and not only beat them but agreed to appear on Sky’s MNF, with Dave Jones and Jamie Carragher, to explain in detail how he did it.
As one post on social media put it, “Beating the club that harshly sacked you, then going on TV and explaining exactly how to play through them is some enormous big dog behaviour.” Another joked: “Not bad for a PE teacher.”
Until that night for many that was the perception of Gary O’Neil – or Gaz O’Neil as he calls himself on X (formerly Twitter). A kind of glorified PE teacher who stumbled into becoming a Premier League manager after taking over as caretaker. The caretaker tag can be hard to shake, and O’Neil felt that last season. Yet for those who know him well, have worked alongside him and played for him, there is an entirely different side to O’Neil that is only recently starting to emerge in public.
When he was announced as Wolves’s new head coach on 9 August there were claims from supporters that he was a cheap option, that no one else wanted the job, that their financial fair play troubles had forced them to replace the popular Julen Lopetegui – the former Real Madrid and Spain manager – with the guy considered not good enough for Bournemouth seven weeks ago. Some at Wolves believe it was a sentiment shared by the players.
But that simply wasn’t true. Sporting director Matt Hobbs and a team of three others tasked with selecting Lopetegui’s replacement met with several candidates but were blown away by O’Neil’s presentation when they met him for an interview in London.
O’Neil shared with them a detailed vision of what he believed Wolves could become, how he wanted them to play, the type of players he liked, and delivered it all with the incisive intensity familiar with those close to him (one person who knows O’Neil well describes him as “super intense”).
They were already impressed by the work he had done at Bournemouth but all four on the committee came out of the meeting certain that O’Neil was Wolves’s next manager. “He was the strongest candidate by a distance,” Hobbs says.
Still, in the first few weeks O’Neil was not oblivious to the criticism from fans on social media, and was quite surprised by the extent of negativity about his appointment.
He was, after all, staking his reputation on a seriously tough job, taking over at club that had not only lost its popular, big-name manager, but had also lost several of its popular, big-name players.
To satisfy financial regulations Wolves needed £80m profit in the transfer window and an unprecedented 41 players came and went. They lost their captain, Ruben Neves, to Al-Hilal during the Saudi Pro League splurge, Matheus Nunes went to Manchester City, Raul Jimenez, their main goal threat in recent years, to Fulham.
And in stepped O’Neil four days before a trip to Manchester United on the opening day of the season. Though they lost 1-0, it was felt a huge decision had gone against them, and people were impressed, at least internally, by how Wolves had played.
Even so, it was a creaky start. In the Premier League they had lost four and beaten only Everton before travelling to Luton and finding themselves a player down by half-time.
It was, one Wolves source explains, a real test of if the players were buying into his methods when O’Neil laid into in them in the dressing room at half-time. They came out fighting for a draw that included another iffy referee call against them.
As O’Neil would later detail on MNF, his tactical approach is challenging and complex. He has this innate ability to analyse opposition teams, spot weaknesses and tailor and implement tactical plays to exploit them.
But for O’Neil to constantly demand new ways of playing for each game, he must also possess the ability to relay the information to his players so that in a short space of time they can understand and execute it.
One of the things O’Neil noticed when he first started working with the players at the Sir Jack Hayward Training Ground was that many weren’t used to the structure and rigidity with which he wanted them to play. Now, he tries to strike a fine balance, between letting players such as Joao Gomes and Matheus Cunha – “free spirits” as he describes them – have room to fly and the needs of the team.
“Communication is one of his huge strengths,” says one Wolves source. “Maybe it’s natural, or because he was recently a player, but he’s a very good man-manager, giving players time if they want it, leaving them alone if they don’t, dealing with players in and out the team, understanding players’ ability to take on information, challenging them, looking out for them in the press.
“The way he broke things down on Monday Night Football made it really easy for football fans to understand – that’s the same behind the scenes. When I listen to him post-match in the dressing room, he makes things very easy to understand. Some people can overcomplicate things or get too emotional and rant and rave rather than give concise information. Gary’s really got that talent.”
Wolves players are encouraged to give feedback about their experience at the club and they have been effusive about working with O’Neil. Indeed, when Hobbs and his team recruited the 40-year-old they sought around 30 references from his former players and all were positive (this is not always the case in football).
For the first time, Wolves had decided to find a manager that fitted their own long-term strategy, rather than find a manager and shape the club around them. And Hobbs told O’Neil on day one that they wanted to build a team in the image of the fans at Molineux.
“Hard-working area, people who love their football, passionate, will get behind you if they see you putting the effort in and working hard on the pitch,” Hobbs told the club’s Wolves Weekly podcast.
It was felt that a little of that had been lost under Bruno Lage. Under the Portuguese coach they did not outrun an opponent in the league. Under O’Neil, they have been outrun by no one.
Directors at the club have already been impressed by the way O’Neil is getting the team playing, the subtle changes around the training ground, the opportunities for youth players, and see O’Neil as a potential long-term head coach.
They are trying to change the culture at Wolves and the vision perfectly aligns with O’Neil’s own philosophy, wanting the right characters with the right values as much as the right players. Some of the due diligence on transfers has involved recruitment staff interviewing school teachers in South America. And after a difficult summer in the transfer market there is scope to spend in January, if the deal is right.
Wolves many only be 14th in the table, but they are already six points clear of relegation (Bournemouth occupy 18th place on six points). After that uncertain start, when O’Neil outmanoeuvred Pep Guardiola it made people sit up. Then there was Bournemouth and the television appearance. “The fans have done a 180 on Gary and they reached it fully on the night he did Monday Night Football,” a well-placed source said.
And their achievements to date can be placed in the context of the litany of important incorrect referee decisions against them.
Simon Hooper failed to award Wolves a penalty against Manchester United and did not referee in the top-flight for three weeks. Josh Smith did not officiate for four after wrongly awarding Luton a penalty against them. Anthony Taylor was demoted for a week after the penalty he awarded against them in the Newcastle game. Plus the late stoppage time penalty awarded to Sheffield United on Saturday.
While Liverpool make vague threats about suing and Arsenal release unhelpful statements criticising officials, O’Neil has cautiously answered questions in press conferences before privately calling Howard Webb on Sunday morning.
He has even started trying to work into his coaching sessions how to deal with wrong decisions, either himself or his staff making calls in small-sided games, telling the players to get on with it whether they are right or wrong, lobbing the ball back to the opposite team to teach them to refocus immediately.
Now, an impressive start to his coaching career and breaking out at Bournemouth has inevitably led to comparisons to Eddie Howe, the Newcastle manager who launched his career there, and his name being included in debates about the next England manager.
“He’s the closest thing I’ve seen to Eddie since Eddie,” one Bournemouth source said. “He hasn’t got the same boyish charisma and charm that Eddie has, but he’s a deep thinker, an incredibly hard worker, incredibly focused, he doesn’t have much life out of football and he’s happy with that.
“He has that ability to communicate with people around a club as well as Eddie did. He’s open to getting to know people, wanting to find out what they did at the weekend, how the family is, understanding it’s about creating a place with good people as well as good players.”
Still, there remains a modicum of concern that where Howe was able to experiment and shape his identity in Leagues One and Two and the Championship, O’Neil is feeling his way under the unforgiving glare of the Premier League. As he has already discovered at Bournemouth: you can be coach of the year material one minute, sacked the next.
That has still not stopped him going all in with Wolves. He has only been in charge for a little over three months, but O’Neil has a young family and his children are converts who travel home and away in Wolves shirts.
The big dog and his puppies are feeling at home among the Wolves.