In August 2014 Norwich City signed Gary O’Neil to inject some Championship know-how and experience into their playing squad. Now they are mulling over the possibility of him becoming their next head coach….
O’Neil has been spoken to about potentially succeeding Johannes Hoff Thorup in the Carrow Road hot seat, along with a host of other candidates, including some yet to become public.
Relevant to the current search, it was Neil Adams, then manager and now technical director, who moved to sign O’Neil back in 2014. He went onto make 55 appearances for City and even captained them on four occasions..
As a player, he was solid but somewhat unspectacular. He was a midfielder who prided himself on graft and solidity rather than flashy passes.
O’Neil’s head coach career has formed a somewhat similar path. Jobs at Wolves and Bournemouth have been solid but lacked spark, yet both of his successors have managed to ignite both up the Premier League table.
During an impressive performance on Sky Sports’ flagship Monday Night Football show in October 2023, O’Neil, then in charge of Wolves, mapped out his football philosophy, stressing the importance of versatility.
“Since I’ve taken over, a big key to me has been being adaptable and being flexible. I always start it from, this is my ideal, so I’d love to go to Manchester City, I’d love to press everything and I’d love to have 70% of the ball.
“Is that going to happen, and are we going to win the game? Probably not,” O’Neil said.
“So, how far do I need to move away from my ideal to give us the best chance of winning this game? And as we see from the Man City when they came to us, that was nowhere near my ideal.
“We were low, we didn’t have much of the ball, but it gave us the best opportunity that day of putting three points on the board.”
So is O’Neil the pragmatist he proclaims? The numbers do paint a different picture.
Throughout his time both at Bournemouth and Wolves, O’Neil’s side have conceded more high-quality chances than they’ve created. They have shown signs of defensive weakness despite some impressive transitional and counter attacking phases. It’s worth noting there is a feeling internally that Norwich have looked at their most dangerous in similar situations this season.
The numbers also show that possession isn’t a metric that O’Neil’s team have been able to convert into success. At Bournemouth, his team enjoyed 54pc of the ball on just four occasions and lost every time. Last season, that figure increased to 14 times, but Wolves won just three. This season, prior to his departure, they hit that threshold on four occasions and failed to win.
Of course, high possession doesn’t mean success. It isn’t as binary as possession equals good and being organised equals bad – but O’Neil’s sides have struggled to do either effectively.
Behind the numbers there is context. O’Neil inherited the Bournemouth job four games into the season and days after a 9-0 thrashing at Liverpool. He then took them on a six game unbeaten run which included four draws. At that time, Parker had publicly dismissed the quality of the squad and the Cherries were tipped for relegation. It was his first role as a head coach.
It may not have been pretty, but O’Neil kept them up. They finished 15th and defied the odds. When Bournemouth elected to relieve him of his services, there was genuine shock. Few would debate that the decision to bring in Andoni Iraola has been anything other than a monumental success.
Gary O’Neil enjoyed a two year spell at Carrow Road as a player.
Gary O’Neil enjoyed a two year spell at Carrow Road as a player. (Image: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd)
O’Neil then moved to Wolves where the context was also challenging. He inherited a side which had lost Ruben Neves to Al-Hilal and Raul Jimenez to Fulham. Experienced midfielder Joao Moutinho had been released. Matheus Nunes was then sold to Manchester City for £53m.
Despite that context, O’Neil wasn’t a popular appointment at Molineux. But results and performances won over the Wolves fans and he became a popular figure during his first season, the 2023/24 campaign, as the team fought for European qualification.
Injuries prevented qualification for any European competition, but despite selling a clutch of their best players, O’Neil’s first year at Wolves was a success considering the backdrop of adversity.
Year two contained more challenges. Another two players, Pedro Neto and Max Kilman, departed. O’Neil hoped that would shift the PSR clouds that had been long-standing at Molineux. He penned a new deal on that premise, but reinforcements were not forthcoming.
A tough start to the season saw O’Neil and Wolves slip to a run of one win in 20 Premier League matches. They had conceded 40 times and 20 from set-pieces. Crucially, they were sat in the bottom three of the Premier League.
Much like Iraola at Bournemouth, Vitor Pereira has got a tune out of a squad that O’Neil had publicly questioned.
His public utterances had initially worked to create a siege mentality but ended up damaging him with the Wolves fanbase, which felt they were excuse-making and blame-shifting towards the end of his tenure, often away from O’Neil’s own door.
So is O’Neil the pragmatist he proclaimed to be on Monday Night Football back in October 2023? In truth, it is a hard question to answer.
Gary O’Neil still has plenty to prove as a head coach.
Gary O’Neil still has plenty to prove as a head coach. (Image: PA)
The stats suggest otherwise, but the context of his two jobs have been particularly challenging. He has shown flashes of success and navigated storms, even if just providing stability rather than progression.
O’Neil would perhaps argue that he hasn’t been afforded the conditions to play in the way he would like or develop a side in his image. It has fire-fighting on and off the pitch.
But there have been spells in that adversity that have shown O’Neil’s potential. The sample size isn’t big enough to form a definitive judgement at this stage.
It would be a gamble for Norwich. O’Neil, despite his Premier League CV, hasn’t managed in the Championship and doesn’t have a track record of coaching a side in the image that Knapper has publicly stated is his wish. That doesn’t mean he can’t – but it represents significant risk.
In 2014, Norwich knew what O’Neil was bringing. In 2025, should they opt to appoint him, that clarity won’t be there.
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