GON: ‘No excuses’

[wolfslair]

Gentle reminder - bournemouth fans said look out for unfathomable tactics, odd subs, and bizarre post match interviews.

3/3 today

You saying we got GON bingo completed inside two games…. Crazy

That’s “number hwang” everyone!!

Hahaha

 

[WolvesAndCows]

The next 6 away games all look crucial, takes us to the end of November, let's see where we are then.

 

[Jd132]

What good is it

He isn’t going to get sacked

We aren’t going to get a replacement in that is better

There are probably 50 managers better than GON out there. We pitted him against Lampard and Smith ffs. He may be the best of that bunch but all three of them are crap. To go from Lopetegui to him is laughable. I'd genuinely prefer Mick to come back rather than stomach this complete chancer.

 

[Oh When the Wolves]

There are probably 50 managers better than GON out there. We pitted him against Lampard and Smith ffs. He may be the best of that bunch but all three of them are crap. To go from Lopetegui to him is laughable. I'd genuinely prefer Mick to come back rather than stomach this complete chancer.

Name a manger you would want, that would come here with no budget, 3 centre backs, 1 fit centre forward

 

[MasWolf]

How long do we have to give him before it's acceptable to say what everyone already knows?

Perhaps it's a bit harsh, but if we don't get any points before the Luton game, I'd sack him. We can't wait till Nov/Xmas time this year as we won't be able to get a top manager to save us from a huge turnaround if needed.

 

[MasWolf]

What good is it

He isn’t going to get sacked

We aren’t going to get a replacement in that is better

If we seriously can't get a better manager than someone who has only managed 39 games, then we deserve to be relegated.

 

[Jd132]

Name a manger you would want, that would come here with no budget, 3 centre backs, 1 fit centre forward

As I said in the post you quoted- I would genuinely prefer Mick. But I think we are in heated agreement- we only have this manager because of the self-inflicted problems from Fosun- not because he is the best person for the job.

 

[SakosRightFoot]

Because it is his job to motivate, correct any tactical issues from the first half.

Examples of What he needed to discuss, but not full list;

the missed chances, - so motivation to keep trying

Constant and too easy attacks down our right back channel - tactical/player switch

Movement in final third - positive lads, keep it up

And then when they crossed the white wash for the second half it is his job to react, make adjustments and chsnges based on what the other coach does.

Conceding three goals in ten mins with no reply, is massively down to the manager when you look at easily we were carved open.

How big a drop off in performance from first half to second half, is significantly down to him as he had them for 15 mins…..

Then the fact he left neto and semedo on when both played woefully for 90 mins is bad too.

His lack of tactical knowledge, inability to change things and poor substitutions (too late on Monday too) were exposed massively by the excellent brighton manager. All those things were told to us by Bournemouth fans and some of us on here in the day before and of his appointment.

The job, prem football and wolves as a club are all too big for this novice…. He hasn’t proven anything and the situation we are in due to Jeff and fosun needs an experienced head and not a managerial new born!!!

Not a huge fan of O’Neil but doesn’t really matter what he said at half time seeing as our defence went walkabout in the 1st minute after the restart.

Also pretty sure he didn’t tell our full backs to let people run the wrong side of them to tap in crosses.

 

[wolfslair]

Not a huge fan of O’Neil but doesn’t really matter what he said at half time seeing as our defence went walkabout in the 1st minute after the restart.

Also pretty sure he didn’t tell our full backs to let people run the wrong side of them to tap in crosses.

But what did he do to correct that?

3 in ten mins is inept game management from the gaffer!

 

[maws]

The thing that needed fixing was our away form! Our home form was up there with anyones

 

[EastDorsetWolf]

In our wisdom we gave him a 3 year contract. Someone remarked about how Brighton 's fitness coach had their subs going through a routine at h/t while ours just ambled around in a kickabout. O'neil has also stopped the players being together on the eve of a home match, telling them to turn up at the training ground on the morning of the match. I was hoping the guy may have something tactically and maybe unfair to judge him on just a couple of games, but so far he has fallen short. He's the wrong appointment.

 

[KBWWFC]

Yeah….two games and the knives are out.

I wonder if even Pep or Klopp would have made much difference after about 10 days……maybe some but nothing incredible.

Well, after 4 days and the United game people on here were proclaiming him the Messiah, as "Gazball" had picked up where JL left us Vs Rennes.

 

[DanishWolf]

There are probably 50 managers better than GON out there. We pitted him against Lampard and Smith ffs. He may be the best of that bunch but all three of them are crap. To go from Lopetegui to him is laughable. I'd genuinely prefer Mick to come back rather than stomach this complete chancer.

Mick, Dyche, even Rob Edwards..
The list of managers I normally wouldn't want but who I'd now prefer to the one we've is pretty long..

 

[DanishWolf]

In our wisdom we gave him a 3 year contract. Someone remarked about how Brighton 's fitness coach had their subs going through a routine at h/t while ours just ambled around in a kickabout. O'neil has also stopped the players being together on the eve of a home match, telling them to turn up at the training ground on the morning of the match. I was hoping the guy may have something tactically and maybe unfair to judge him on just a couple of games, but so far he has fallen short. He's the wrong appointment.

In fairness O'Neil can't be blamed for the fact we don't even have a fitness coach currently...

Anyone know who did the warm up yesterday? Derry?

 

[Boss Hogg]

Gazball like Brunoball will ultimately prove to be idiotic and we will have to go back to a more defensive mindset.

With the lack of pace in our defence we can’t press high, we will need to drop deeper and have more defensive cover in front of Kilman and Dawson to stop teams playing through us. Ideally we could then do with having pace for our counter-attack - someone like Traore would have been perfect.

GON has neither the tactical brain or even the players in the squad to be able to do this. Are there 3 teams worse than us?

 

[zedkiel60]

Give the bloke a chance, After 10 days in the job a good performance at Utd and ok apart from 10 minutes of terrible defending against a very good Brighton. He needs to drop Semedo (useless) and Neto,(too predictable)The problem i see is a defence with no pace and easily bypassed. If we had taken our chances again yesterday things wouldn't feel half as bad. Not my first choice but someone like Adams from southampton may help in that department,and Elvidi in defence. Come on Shi you know it makes sense

 

[Fifty Niner]

**** me. Two games into the season and some fans have resorted to this. TWO GAMES!!!!

Wait until we’re four games in!!

 

[Andi130]

I'd have said the disdain shown through the original Garry O'Neil poll(as a representaive sample) should have given a decent feel for how quickly this was going turn. We needed an appointment that going to galvanise the fans, not divide them. The club failed in that respect. GON is going to have a torrid time turning it around after that type of performance, on your first home game too. It's just compounded people fears that he's really not up for the task. Mine included.

I side with the comments that he hasn't had enough time to embed his own style, but what we saw yesterday was a disjointed team who were trying to play to his tune and it failed. The high defensive line being the biggest challenge. We sat deeper at Man U and the midfield pair had a solid understanding of their roles. If one went, the other dropped in. Yesterday they were mostly running around like headless chickens. The other issue I have is we have players who are adept at exploiting space, but there was absolutely no room for any of the players to come slightly deeper and break(al la Cunha, Neto, Nunes) with us holding the back that high. Granted we missed a few sitters, but I still wouldn't have thought that Brighton would have scored any less than they did.

Yesterday we got done by a good side, but it was a also by a good manager who completely unpicked our setup. He was half way there in the first half and completely there after HT. Did GON show anything to demonstrate he could positively influence the game when the chips are down....I didn't see a jot, but time will tell.

 

[Hot Fuss]

**** me. Two games into the season and some fans have resorted to this. TWO GAMES!!!!

Some posters are absolutely desperate for him to fail.

 

[Perton Wolf]

Some posters are absolutely desperate for him to fail.

He's been dealt a **** hand to be fair.

Club is a shambles off the pitch and to date in the summer window we've signed a 3rd choice GK and a backup RB on free transfers.

Don't think anybody will be too harsh on him when things inevitably end the way they will, it's mostly not his fault but there's just no chance he's going to get the most out of this squad.

 

[Woody]

Then the fact he left neto and semedo on when both played woefully for 90 mins is bad too.

The most concerning thing of all for me was that Neto was played exclusively on the right for his entire performance.
Of course he may have been equally hopeless on the left but history tells us that he is so much better on that side and O'Neil didn't even seek to try it.
Basic stuff that is very, very concerning.

 

[sillytuna]

You saying we got GON bingo completed inside two games…. Crazy

That’s “number hwang” everyone!!

Hahaha

We did!

In all seriousness I just hope things settle down during the week and his backroom team have a quiet word re: tactics. O'Neill himself needs to sort the discipline out.

I was actually very positive before the match which is probably why I was so annoyed after. For anyone defending it, a birds eye view of the second half would show why some of us are so frustrated. Honestly not a surprise to lose 4-1 to an excellent team so if it was just about chances taken then the criticism wouldn't be this bad.

 

[wolfslair]

We did!

In all seriousness I just hope things settle down during the week and his backroom team have a quiet word re: tactics. O'Neill himself needs to sort the discipline out.

I was actually very positive before the match which is probably why I was so annoyed after. For anyone defending it, a birds eye view of the second half would show why some of us are so frustrated. Honestly not a surprise to lose 4-1 to an excellent team so if it was just about chances taken then the criticism wouldn't be this bad.

For me I agree with you, but the regularity and ease they played it in behind semedo for chances in the first half was a concern from very early on.

We were too open at times in the first half too. People ignore the fact they too could have had a further 2/3 goals that half…..

They also could have been out of sight if taking their chances or been more accurate with the final pass like we could have been.

The first half was good, but there were major worries and issues people are forgetting because they were so impressed with how well we attacked. Put a total view on the first half and either team could have been well clear of the other and it wasn’t as great as people are eulogising.

For me the first ten mins and three goals weren’t a suprise, they did the exact same moves in the first half and weren’t as clinical. In that spell they were and we got slaughtered.

GON was exposed for not seeing trends and consistent running of the same pass and move throughout the game. That is very very worrying for the long term for me. As it wasn’t difficult to see where they exposed us and got the most joy.

 

[sillytuna]

Yes brighton did expose us first half and our reaction to it was to push higher up the pitch instead of tucking in and being a tighter unit!

 

[EastDorsetWolf]

In fairness O'Neil can't be blamed for the fact we don't even have a fitness coach currently...

Anyone know who did the warm up yesterday? Derry?

We do, promoted from U21s.

 

[wolfslair]

Yes brighton did expose us first half and our reaction to it was to push higher up the pitch instead of tucking in and being a tighter unit!

A massive basic failing of our new manager!

It was basic and naive, not even like he got sucked into a trap or anything.

He played into the brighton gaffers strengths! He played those high line and press tactics against the best and fastest counter attackers in the league….

Amateur level decision making by a guy who isn’t close to prem standard

 

[Chisels_n_ommers]

Some balance:-

You are the Coach (based on the you are the ref franchise) -

• You go out and play Utd (your first game).
• The players will have carried on from pre season.
• You have had less input than in "normal" circumstances. Last minute.com and all that
• They play very well (and there seems to be a good spirit in the game)
• You want to keep on side with your players and get them on board and retain the team spirit and hard work.

Would you.....

a) Say to them, "great lads, we were robbed. I like your hard work and chance creation. Give me the same again"?

b) Say to them "That's all well and good, but in Utd we played a side who could be run through in the middle of the park who didn't play a high press. Brighton are a side who are a totally different conundrum - so we change it. Here's what we do....."?


I reckon 95% of coaches out there would have gone with option (a).

I reckon 99% of the posts on this forum went for option (a) pre match (with one change - play Fabio for Sarabia).

 

[Monswolf]

Some posters are absolutely desperate for him to fail.

I don’t think some posters are desperate for him to fail. I think some posters me included know that he WILL fail. Those saying give it 6 games 10 games etc why? Genuinely why every single game we play is important so why give him that much time? If we do and we are then where i fear we will be it may already be too late

 

[SingYourHeartsOut]

The thing that needed fixing was our away form! Our home form was up there with anyones

Yes, the home crowd was crucial too. Don't think we've had gallows humour after an hour of the home campaign for a few years!

 

[KBWWFC]

He's been dealt a **** hand to be fair.

He willingly interviewed for the job, knowing the full situation as it played out very publicly.
He's been dealt the exact hand he knew he would.

 

[Hot Fuss]

He's been dealt a **** hand to be fair.

Club is a shambles off the pitch and to date in the summer window we've signed a 3rd choice GK and a backup RB on free transfers.

Don't think anybody will be too harsh on him when things inevitably end the way they will, it's mostly not his fault but there's just no chance he's going to get the most out of this squad.

Loppy basically said “**** this squad, it’s not good enough, I’m not going to work with it”.

So why are some people expecting O’Neil to do so much with it??

Brighton battered us 4 months ago, we’ve since lost players and bought in no one. I’m scratching my head what folk thought would happen yesterday to be honest.

He’s had 2 games and we’ve actually played pretty well for large parts of those 180 minutes.

It’s not the managers fault Sa is like he is, Cunha misses sitters and VAR failed to give an obvious penalty. It’s not the managers fault the club have neglected the centre forward position for 4 years.

People want him out already, that’s fine but who do they really think will come in? An elite manager? Tried that and he didn’t want to know.

Actually think it’s quite sad that some supporters are picking apart his press conference trying to start a character assassination.

 

[wolfslair]

He's been dealt a **** hand to be fair.

Club is a shambles off the pitch and to date in the summer window we've signed a 3rd choice GK and a backup RB on free transfers.

Don't think anybody will be too harsh on him when things inevitably end the way they will, it's mostly not his fault but there's just no chance he's going to get the most out of this squad.

Jl was handed a worse hand before the World Cup and has handed over a far better prospect of survival and squad to GON last week.

Jl was dealt the same bad hand at the start of the season, the issue is GON hasn’t got the skill, knowledge or experience to do this job.

I want to be wrong, but his management yesterday showed that he won’t. So many easy and basic fixes missed and tactical errors made……

Not even close to good enough Hobbs has screwed the pooch with this hire!

 

[Beckbury Wolf]

Do we know what he got sacked for? Our owners have a track record of this. Nuno didn't get sacked for on field performances, either. Or did he? Who knows?

He wasn't sacked. They reached a mutual settlement to pay his contract up.

 

[Contrarian]

He wasn't sacked. They reached a mutual settlement to pay his contract up.

Yes, but it wasn't for on field performances, was it? We've now lost our best manager for 40 years and potentially the next best after him, both for nothing to do with on field performance. Isn't that odd? Every previous manager was sacked for poor results. All this talk about JL being "difficult". The same was said about Nuno after he left. Have to wonder who really is "difficult to work with" here.

 

[Beckbury Wolf]

Yes, but it wasn't for on field performances, was it? We've now lost our best manager for 40 years and potentially the next best after him, both for nothing to do with on field performance. Isn't that odd? Every previous manager was sacked for poor results. All this talk about JL being "difficult". The same was said about Nuno after he left. Have to wonder who really is "difficult to work with" here.

Totally agree, I'm a massive Jlo fan and was devastated when he left. I agree similar stories came out when Nuno left so I take them with a pinch of salt.

Early impressions of GON he strikes me more of a coach/number 2. I doubt he has the gravitas to be a manager and lead players.

 

[Contrarian]

Jl was handed a worse hand before the World Cup and has handed over a far better prospect of survival and squad to GON last week.

Jl was dealt the same bad hand at the start of the season, the issue is GON hasn’t got the skill, knowledge or experience to do this job.

I want to be wrong, but his management yesterday showed that he won’t. So many easy and basic fixes missed and tactical errors made……

Not even close to good enough Hobbs has screwed the pooch with this hire!

I've not said anything against O'Neil so far. Thought it best to wait and see, Even that perhaps he could turn out to be an inspired signing as he did do a good job last season. However, I agree that there are early warning signs yesterday. He talks well enough and has a good attitude, but tactically and overall ... starting to get deja vu and reminders of Bruno's early matches. I backed Bruno far too long, in hindsight. Like O'Neil I don't think Bruno was a terrible manager, certainly not Saunders or Zenga levels of bad. Just not the right experience for this job.

I hope he can steady the ship after yesterday. A lot depends on the players attitude and whether the choose to play for him or not. Sadly, it's all player power these days. If they decide they don't want to play for him, then we will be in trouble and arguing that players should put in 100% regardless of manager, won't work. We saw it under Bruno, initially we did OK, but once the players lost faith in him and lost motivation, we collapsed.

 

[Jamwolf]

We slate GON when he joins, then apology thread when we play well against Man U, and now write him off again !

Embarassing really. Noses put out of joint that we didn't get a name manager.
In the meantime we have played better in the first two games than 90% of the turgid rubbish JL served up. And when we took a beating under JL, it was put down to a bad day at the office.

I think that we'll be fine under GON. If anything people should be having a go at Nunes for his idiotic behaviour at the end.

 

[northnorfolkwolf]

In his post match interview today, Gary O’Neil was quick to proclaim that there would be “NO EXCUSES” for todays performance, in keeping with his humble, ‘no nonsense’ approach.

He then said this;

“It’s a massive number of chances. It’s been two tough games. It’s a group that’s new to me and I’m new to them. We’re eight or nine days in. Did I know there were going to be things that needed to be fixed here? Of course. Whenever there is a change there’s things that need to be fixed.”

I am delighted Jeff found such a no nonsense manager.

And why does he keep flicking his left ear? I'm sure there are psychoanalysts or body language experts on here who could shed some light on this. Perhaps it's a sign of under confidence or discomfort? Either way it's disconcerting and distracts from what he's saying.

 

[wolfslair]

I've not said anything against O'Neil so far. Thought it best to wait and see, Even that perhaps he could turn out to be an inspired signing as he did do a good job last season. However, I agree that there are early warning signs yesterday. He talks well enough and has a good attitude, but tactically and overall ... starting to get deja vu and reminders of Bruno's early matches. I backed Bruno far too long, in hindsight. Like O'Neil I don't think Bruno was a terrible manager, certainly not Saunders or Zenga levels of bad. Just not the right experience for this job.

I hope he can steady the ship after yesterday. A lot depends on the players attitude and whether the choose to play for him or not. Sadly, it's all player power these days. If they decide they don't want to play for him, then we will be in trouble and arguing that players should put in 100% regardless of manager, won't work. We saw it under Bruno, initially we did OK, but once the players lost faith in him and lost motivation, we collapsed.

Many people speak well, doesn’t mean they have the actual skill, competitive, knowledge or experience to deliver on their fantastic sound bites.

It is why all this talk of a three hour interview is frankly pathetic and shows that the interviewer panel wasn’t up to snuff in terms of how to interview.

They base so much on a presentation from what is said. That is another worry for me, as many people are great at presenting but crap at their actual job.

 

[Parkfieldswolf]

Yes, but it wasn't for on field performances, was it? We've now lost our best manager for 40 years and potentially the next best after him, both for nothing to do with on field performance. Isn't that odd? Every previous manager was sacked for poor results. All this talk about JL being "difficult". The same was said about Nuno after he left. Have to wonder who really is "difficult to work with" here.

I think JL was a coward to quit and doesn’t deserve the ‘elite’ coach tag but you’re probably right in just who is the difficult one to work with at Wolves. I believe JL would have wanted free reign to bring in whoever whereas Jeff is very much in the pocket of Mendes and his recommended players. When JL arrived I honestly thought he would have the freedom to choose players but now think the power struggle that resulted was inevitable really.