It may come as a surprise to learn that Gary O’Neil is notorious among footballers of his generation for the theft of his Ferrari F430 Spider F1, the perpetrator taking advantage of the then Middlesbrough player leaving his keys in the ignition while paying for petrol at a Shell garage in 2009.
The Premier League manager that O’Neil has become, at Bournemouth and now Wolves, presents a public image that is the opposite of flashy, the antithesis of absent-minded. O’Neil, 40, is full of wired intensity yet modest. Even when his team pulled off the shock of the season so far in beating Manchester City, he retained a laser focus on the next match.
Last season O’Neil’s response to a 1-0 win over Liverpool, after which Jürgen Klopp admitted his team had “played for 95 minutes the game Bournemouth wanted us to play”, was to deflect the conversation swiftly to the return of David Brooks, recently recovered from cancer. Similarly, when Bournemouth won 3-2 at Tottenham in April, he had to be cajoled into admitting he would be watching that evening’s Match of the Day.
O’Neil has made a virtue from being underestimated. He returns on Saturday to Bournemouth, the club that jettisoned him in June after he saved them from being relegation certainties. “A change is in the best interests of this football club,” was how Bill Foley, the American who became owner midway through last season, announced O’Neil’s removal.
Within the English football community, this was widely perceived as an act of treachery. O’Neil, on the coaching staff, had stepped in once Scott Parker, having publicly dismissed his team’s survival chances, presided over a 9-0 defeat at Anfield in August 2022 and was sacked. Bournemouth were safe by 30 April, with four games to spare, a 4-1 defeat of Leeds lifting them to 39 points. “Not many people outside of Bournemouth would have given us a prayer,” O’Neil rightly remarked.
Perhaps the four defeats that followed whetted the appetite of Foley and his associates for change, though after that Leeds win, the Texan financier was seen waving a cherry-red flag in celebration. O’Neil fell victim to the time-honoured itchy trigger finger of any incoming owner, an attendant desire to have their own man in.
The capture of Andoni Iraola, a coach feted for converting Madrid’s fourth team, Rayo Vallecano, into a mid-table, much-admired La Liga side and viewed as the rightful heir to Marcelo Bielsa’s adventurous style, was painted as a coup. “He was highly sought after by other clubs across the continent and his style of play has been an important factor in making this decision,” was Foley’s reasoning. The Basque was granted £80m of talent to add to the January signing Dango Ouattara, the Burkina Faso winger crucial in last season’s successful survival battle, supplying Philip Billing’s goal against Liverpool and then scoring the winner at Tottenham.
O’Neil was out in the cold, though summering on a beach when he answered Wolves’ call after Julen Lopetegui, the former Spain coach, departed by mutual consent having decided he could not work within newly trimmed budgets. For the second season in a row, O’Neil was tasked with keeping up a squad that had been otherwise deemed short of Premier League quality, again without a pre-season. Lopetegui, to his credit, continued to train the Wolves squad until a replacement could be found.
A manful effort against Manchester United in O’Neil’s first match, denied by a VAR mistake that required a Howard Webb apology, set the template for a Wolves team who are determined, if short of the attacking quality Lopetegui craved. Craig Dawson, the craggy defender who marked Erling Haaland into obscurity, has come to embody the new Wolves. “Quality, hard work and togetherness” are the key O’Neil demands.
Iraola has meanwhile failed to live up to his billing, with the caveat that overhauling a squad while establishing a high-pressing style takes time. A return of three points and no wins from eight games is miserable.
Not that O’Neil’s eight points from eight matches is wondrous and doubts were expressed among Wolves fans before that City heist and a battling 1-1 draw with in-form Aston Villa, a raucous Molineux playing its part as Pep Guardiola’s team were sunk. O’Neil’s team, although by no means as tactically flexible as Lopetegui’s, have staying power and Pedro Neto, their maverick, is allowed freedom to rove and is playing his best football in five seasons at the club. O’Neil’s preference may be passing football, but like his Bournemouth this Wolves team are built to suffer and counter.
After 214 Premier League appearances, having served under managers such as Tony Pulis, Harry Redknapp, Gareth Southgate and Sam Allardyce as a diligent midfielder who made the most of his talent to become a trusted senior player, O’Neil had a deep-seated education. He is no Wayne Rooney, handed the keys to a club on name alone. While few of his playing generation have succeeded at becoming top-line managers, he is addressing his chance to establish himself with characteristic vigour. On Saturday, he can show Bournemouth what they are missing.
