Gary O'Neil

They were that bad that to focus on VAR would’ve looked silly. Fair play to him for having the self awareness not to I guess.

He knew the job when he accepted it. If they’re not going to support a former Real Madrid manager in the January window, then why tf would they support him lol?

It’s a very difficult job, but the trade off is that he’s completely immune to any level of criticism, and the expectation levels of the job are 0. I’d be very interested to see how he gets on at a job where the fans actual expect…anything at all.
 
NWCherries98 said:
They were that bad that to focus on VAR would’ve looked silly. Fair play to him for having the self awareness not to I guess.

He knew the job when he accepted it. If they’re not going to support a former Real Madrid manager in the January window, then why tf would they support him lol?

It’s a very difficult job, but the trade off is that he’s completely immune to any level of criticism, and the expectation levels of the job are 0. I’d be very interested to see how he gets on at a job where the fans actual expect…anything at all.
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Tbf he didn't have any credit in the bank here and some people never gave him a chance before they wrote him off. Even now we can see people who slate him despite the very credible job he did for us under difficult circumstances.

He had no honeymoon period at Wolves either, they had the knives out for him from the off and he was up against it. He did well there too. They may not have expected much but he was under pressure to do well straight away.

I think his comments are fair tbh.
 
SlowDownDerek said:
Tbf he didn't have any credit in the bank here and some people never gave him a chance before they wrote him off. Even now we can see people who slate him despite the very credible job he did for us under difficult circumstances.

He had no honeymoon period at Wolves either, they had the knives out for him from the off and he was up against it. He did well there too. They may not have expected much but he was under pressure to do well straight away.

I think his comments are fair tbh.
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Well personally I gave him plenty of credit for the job that he did at the time. I was also delighted with his replacement, because I saw nothing in our future except relegation battles and mediocre football. I’m bored of giving him credit at this point tbh, he did fine. He did the bare minimum, with spurts of being great, and long periods of us playing some truly awful stuff. Iraola’s starting 11 isn’t hugely different to what he had access to, and yet we’re completely transformed in under a season.

My unpopular opinion is that Parker had a perfectly acceptable formula to keep us up, and that if he hadn’t sharted the bed, he would have done so. I still think we haven’t quite replaced the strong defensive patterns we had under him. O’Neil gave the players freedom, but over time we suffered greatly under him, losing our defensive strength, and being reliant on individual moments of quality and luck to stay up. We had the lowest expected points in the league, the least shots, chances created, most goals and shots conceded. I’m so tired of giving him credit for taking a perfectly adequate premier league, lower half squad and making us look pretty poor for most of the season (outside of April). I think the Gary of Wolves does a lot better, to be fair, with the talent we had last year. Any team can go down, so he will always have credit for taking the reins and stabilising the group. But imo any halfway competent manager could’ve kept us last year and played a better brand of football while doing it.

With Wolves, a lot of people (in hindsight, probably incorrectly because their squad is light but contains a lot of quality still) had Wolves to go down, and Wolves fans were expecting a relegation battle. A massive part of why they were expecting this, is because they’d just appointed Gary O’Neil. Even with all this, they were slating him for the first month or two. If the fanbase with no expectations are hounding you out, you’re probably doing a bad job. Which he was.

All the credit in the world to him for turning it around and getting lots of points on the board. I don’t really have anything to say regarding his form there, I think he’s been good for them. In my opinion, from a limited data set, I think he thrives when there’s “no pressure”. I don’t think he’s had a single period as a manager where he was expected to be good by anyone. Wayne Rooney was universally lauded for his work at Derby, even. I genuinely think when it’s at those types of points, it’s pretty easy to build a backs to the wall mentality and motivate players.

That’s of course still it’s own pressure, but the media have been falling over themselves to congratulate him and big him up since we appointed him. First, it was because he should be manager of the year for keeping up a midtable squad; for him to keep our ragtag group of buffoons up, my word. What a manager. No, our squad was always good enough. Parker self immolating and the usual boring tinpot label led to incredibly lazy punditry. Next, there was definitely a long period of clapping his every move to make our club look stupid and ungrateful. Which is understandable if you’ve not looked into how we were under him with any level of detail. Sacking him was a harsh but fair decision, from the perspective of a performance review. I don’t think he’s a bad manager, I just genuinely think he’ll struggle once he’s at a place where the fans and the board expect him to deliver something more.

I know it’s irrelevant but I can’t help but talk about this stuff lol. It winds me up no end how the club was being viewed and how his performances with us were being rated. He’s been very good at Wolves overall, he’s done a much better job than he did here imo. Everyone won.

Regarding his actual comments; I agree, they’re fair enough. My point was more that he should have expected this. If you accept the Watford job and are surprised to be sacked, that’s on you I’m afraid. I have no idea what compelled him as a rookie manager to think he would be supported by those owners, when much more decorated managers before him for the last 4 years weren’t. I can empathise with his situation I guess, but even then, he can just say that the squad is too light and there’s nothing he can do. I’m very interested to see how he gets on with no injuries and a bumper summer window.
 
kirsikka said:
There's a difference between getting it forward quickly into channels to create problems for defenders who may not have reset their position and aimless hoofs up the pitch.

Dare I say it, but against Villa second half was one of the first times this season I think we were more latter than former. Probably just a temporary glitch though, as we've shown on other games that we know what to do.
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I give you the daft kick off routine that AI introduced - happily we have now ditched
 
Very very quiet was our Gary.

Worst performance of the season....... yeah sure.

You got outplayed Gary, and Andoni had one over you for the majority......you only started getting into it when we lost a man,just like last time.

Had to bite his tongue in the press conference.

Had Wolves won he would have had a right go at everything AFCB

Well done Andoni, and Bill Foley and the players.

Stick it up the plastics Andondy.
 
dragonm8 said:
Very very quiet was our Gary.

Worst performance of the season....... yeah sure.

You got outplayed Gary, and Andoni had one over you for the majority......you only started getting into it when we lost a man,just like last time.

Had to bite his tongue in the press conference.

Had Wolves won he would have had a right go at everything AFCB

Well done Andoni, and Bill Foley and the players.

Stick it up the plastics Andondy.
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O'Neil was very gracious in defeat and people still whinge like hell. He was good to Andoni on the touchline and all the staff and complimentary in the press conference.
 
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