Premier League strugglers Wolves sack manager O’Neil

London: Wolverhampton Wanderers on Sunday sacked manager Gary O’Neil after a run of four straight Premier League defeats.

The club are second from bottom of the table with nine points from 16 games after Saturday’s 2-1 home loss to fellow strugglers Ipswich.

“Wolves have parted company with head coach Gary O’Neil and his backroom staff,” the club said in a statement.

“O’Neil arrived at Molineux just three days before the start of the 2023/24 Premier League season, taking on a significant challenge and ultimately guiding the Old Gold to a successful campaign.”

Chairman Jeff Shi said: “We’re very grateful to Gary for all of his effort, dedication and hard work during his time at the club, and we wish him and his team the best of luck for the future.”

Emotions spilled over at full-time on Saturday as Rayan Ait-Nouri was shown a second yellow card and Matheus Cunha also had to be restrained.

O’Neil, 41, was appointed in August 2023 following the departure of Julen Lopetegui and signed a new four-year deal with the club in August this year.

Wolves finished 14th in his first season at the club but have found themselves in a relegation scrap during the current campaign.

Frustrations also boiled over in Monday’s defeat to West Ham when Mario Lemina scuffled with Jarrod Bowen after the full-time whistle, resulting in the Wolves midfielder being stripped of the captaincy.

Taking responsibility

Wanderers were then beaten by Jack Taylor’s stoppage-time header on Saturday and following the full-time scuffles, O’Neil said his players needed to “take some responsibility”.

“We deal with things like that very, very seriously, as you saw last week,” O’Neil said.

“It’s annoying in that we’ve got enough to do at this moment in time, we’ve got enough to fix without me having to spend time on things that go on off the pitch.

“So the players do need to take some responsibility. But I’ll help them with all of it so we get back to work on Monday morning.”