| Gary O'Neil 15:32 - Jun 11 with 7738 views | itfcjoe |
Surprised at how people's instant reactions are to be quite anti him, not to say he's one I'd be desperate to appoint - but can see why he'd be seen as a good candidate.
Was a coach at Bournemouth under Scott Parker for their Championship season when they got promoted. Scott Parker threw toys out of pram at end of window and O'Neil was given the job on 30th August - led them to comfortable safety and finished 15th, despite losing last 4 games when they were mathematically safe.
New owner took over mid season and sacked him and replaced him with Iraola, proved to be the right decision but keeping them up as a newly promoted team taking over one day before window shut was a fine achievement.
The following season, Julen Lopetegui resigned less than a week before the season started because the club were cutting right back on finances - sold Neves, , Collins, Coady, Nunes and Raul Jiminez for a combined £135m, let Traore and Moutinho leave on frees who had been big players and spent £45m on Cunha, plus a few million on 2-3 others but squad was much worse.
Kept them up comfortablya nd finished 14th, again slid back at end of season when safety was secured.
The following season turned into a shocker though, culminating in getting sacked after they lost at home to Ipswich - but budgets were cut again - Wolves raised over £100m from transfers and spent about £30m, wage bill cut and there just seemed a massive discipline problem that he couldn't get hold of.....players were acting out massively, so that was a failure and be interested to hear Wolves fans views on who was more to blame for that between playing staff and O'Neil; but can't see we've got a group here who would do that.
He played for Norwich for a couple of seasons but I can live with that personally.
But ultimately, he's gone in late in the close season to 2 clubs, one of which was newly promoted, and kept them both up comfortably which is the goal here. The only goal in reality, both clubs will have had low wage budgets, both squads were deemed not good enough by their incumbent manager and he managed to prove them wrong.
He may not be the long term answer, and may be better options out there, but struggling to see why he is rated so poorly by some? |  |
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| Gary O'Neil on 21:55 - Jun 21 with 132 views | PioneerBlue |
| Gary O'Neil on 15:46 - Jun 11 by portmanking |
The lack of squad discipline thing is a big deal and is still talked about within the football industry.
He gave the players way too many days off. He wasn't very visible at the training ground. Ultimately, it unravelled very quickly for him in 24/25.
As you say, perhaps not as many bad apples at ITFC, but I still would rather someone with a little more.... presence and personality. [Post edited 11 Jun 15:54]
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However he is about to have his hand in bringing in half a new squad of unknowns to suffolk. If he is not a great man manager anything could happen. Admittedly none of this worries too much because the club culture is different at ITFC and im not sure that he had Neil Critchley with him at Wolves which could be a helping hand in regard to man management. |  |
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