Gary O'Neil sacked, Vitor Pereira latest: Liam Keen and Nathan Judah analysis
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00:00Hello, I'm Nathan Judah. It's Sunday afternoon, which means, of course, time for another video.
00:14I'm here with Wolves reporter, Mr Liam Keane. Liam, this morning, the big news, Gary O'Neill
00:20is no longer manager of Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club, or head coach of Wolverhampton
00:24Wanderers Football Club. Devastating blow last night in the 94th minute. Remains to
00:29be seen whether that goal will have changed things or not. Would Gary O'Neill still be
00:33in a job if they'd drawn 1-1? Maybe not. We don't know. I'm sure that will come out in
00:37the wash maybe in the next few days. But what we do know is he is no longer at the football
00:41club, neither are any of the backroom staff. Wolves 19th in the table. Look, staring relegation
00:48in the face at this moment in time, and it's a mess. It's a mess from top to bottom, Liam.
00:53Before we go on to the developments this afternoon, just a word on Gary O'Neill, his
01:00time at Wolves, and whether this was the right decision now, or should it have been done
01:06earlier? And, of course, the statement backing him that came out only 48 hours before that.
01:14Yeah, unfortunately for Gary, it's felt untenable for some time now, hasn't it? We had that
01:194-0 loss at Everton, and we reported at the time that Wolves were sounding out replacements,
01:26upping that search. It seemed likely he was going to go then before a U-turn, really,
01:32to give him the West Ham game initially and then to publicly back him. Gary's overall
01:38job at Wolves will be slightly disrespected in the sense that the first season went pretty
01:45well considering the state he found the club in, and then injuries meant they had a terrible
01:49end to the season. And this year, unfortunately, will be what he's remembered for by supporters,
01:55a really damaging end to the campaign, or his part in the campaign, rather, with nine
02:01points from 16 games, with 15 set-piece goals conceded, with, what is it, 40 goals now conceded
02:07in the Premier League. Wolves' stats, defensively in particular, have been atrocious. Gary's
02:14attempted all different solutions, different combinations. He's made big decisions in
02:19getting rid of set-piece coach, changing captain, and nothing has stuck, nothing has worked.
02:24And it felt like this was going to be the end result eventually, regardless of the official
02:29public backing of Gary Hill from Geoff Shee. So regardless of that, it felt like we were
02:36going to come to this point, and that Ipswich game was the final nail in the coffin. It
02:40was a game that, performance-wise, Wolves were the better team, to be really honest.
02:45But two terrible errors again for the two goals, a couple of individual performances
02:50that were way below par, and this team has left sleepwalking into relegation without
02:55a change. The one change you can make during a season, you can't sack a board, you can't
03:00sack players. You have to make, or eventually make, the head coach decision. Wolves have
03:09made theirs, and they now need a desperate improvement very, very quickly.
03:15Not a good look, though, is it, when your chairman comes out just before the game, and
03:22probably to be back saying, you know, the story's ran, that he was definitely going
03:25to get the Ipswich game, potentially longer than that. Subject, and this was always subject,
03:31you put it in your exclusive as well, easy for me to say, that was subject to Geoff Shee
03:37changing his mind. And it appears that Geoff Shee, we're not sure whether he was at the
03:42game yesterday, he definitely wasn't in the director's box, but that was probably the
03:46final nail in that coffin. The end of that game, and not just maybe the end of that game,
03:50but the scenes we saw afterwards, the unsavoury scenes. But really, a running friend here
03:57in terms of Jose Sarr going into the South Bank, in terms of Mario Lamino at the end
04:00of that Monday Night Football game, and then you've got Reinout Norrie and Mateus Kunja
04:05involved in really terrible scenes. And look, we could be looking at retrospective action,
04:11potentially Mateus Kunja, which I don't really want to talk about at this moment in time,
04:14because that's just adding insult to injury and it would be an absolute disaster for Wolves.
04:17But yeah, it seems like they hadn't got control on the pitch or off it, and it wasn't changing
04:23any time soon. And maybe that's why they had to make that call, because they need discipline.
04:28And this side haven't got discipline. I'm sick and tired about this team being emotional.
04:33And you can be emotional one thing, but stupid you can control. And they're being stupid at this
04:38moment in time. And it looked like they'd gone in that dressing room. And yeah, it did need someone
04:43to come in and change things. And obviously the hierarchy decided that wasn't Gary O'Neill.
04:49And regardless of what you say or do as their coach, if you've got players
04:53two games in a row, and obviously you mentioned the Jose Sarr one, which was only four games ago,
04:57you know, whether it's with fans, teammates or opposition players having these really
05:04embarrassing outbursts, it's going to reflect badly. Public outbursts. This isn't training
05:09ground stuff. This is, this is in the middle of where you've got 30,000 fans.
05:12Exactly. It's going to reflect badly on the person who leads them. Gary's been very clear
05:18in saying they'd be there. You know, these people get severely punished. Obviously,
05:21Lumina lost his captaincy, big decisions were made and they still couldn't quite control them.
05:25Now the individuals themselves have to take a lot of responsibility for, of course they do.
05:30Moronic really in how some of them have behaved. Whoever comes in, of course, we're going to talk
05:37about next has to get a grip of those individuals, of those personalities and have everyone pushing
05:45in the same direction again. Now, one thing I will add before we move on to that is that
05:49Gary does make mistakes. He's definitely not blameless. We've highlighted lots of them and
05:55we'll continue to speak about them for as long as they're relevant. But the way in which Wolves
06:02are being run by folks at the moment from a self-sustaining point of view, financially,
06:07is going to handicap any manager. Gary was let down in that regard, suffered for it alongside,
06:15you know, compounding out with his own errors. I'm sure there'll be some signings in January.
06:21There'll be some money available, the extent of which we are yet to see. But if money is thrown
06:28at it and this manager keeps this team in this league, there has to be a slight change in the
06:35way that the club is run. If you continue to underspend in a league that is continuously
06:41spending more and more each year, it will catch up with you. If Wolves don't get relegated this
06:44season, they will in the very, very near future eventually, because it's currently not working.
06:51You can sell your best players for big money and reinvest and make it work. Other clubs have done
06:56it, but Wolves aren't reinvesting the money. That's the problem. And they're not reinvesting
07:01it in, you know, senior talent that will come in and make a difference to the starting XI straight
07:06away. Without that, any manager, whether it's Gary O'Neill or Pep Guardiola, any manager is
07:11going to struggle keeping this club in the league. And I think that's a really important
07:15point that we have to highlight.
07:18So moving on, and you've got to expect that when Gary O'Neill was sacked this time,
07:22it was not going to be, they're going to wait and see and they're going to
07:26get their search far and wide. They're going to have someone ready to come in and
07:29reports have emerged that Vito Pereira is the man who is in advanced talks and
07:34he's got to say is the big favourite to be announced and potentially announced
07:39at the start of the middle of this week, coming up with a huge game against Leicester City.
07:43If it is him, Liam, I saw a bookmakers list at the start of this morning. I think there
07:49was 45 managers and he wasn't one of them. Definitely you can give me 100 guesses and
07:54I don't think that would have come up. Interesting CV, had a lot of success,
08:01but it's definitely had a lot of clubs as well, especially recently.
08:04And what do you know from the last half an hour, 45 minutes when you've looked at it,
08:11but what do we know about Vito Pereira and what could he bring to Wolves potentially on the
08:16early signs with what he's done in his career?
08:19Yeah, I think it's going to split a few. It's going to cause a bit of debate.
08:24He had some really good success early in his career. So he did it. He had a very brief
08:28footballing career, sort of lower leagues, retired at 28, started coaching a few lower
08:33league teams in Portugal, eventually was the assistant to Andre Vies Boas at Porto.
08:39And after a year there, when Vies Boas went to Chelsea, he took over as head coach. And
08:43in his two seasons as head coach, he won back-to-back league titles at Porto. Don't
08:48get me wrong. It was a fantastic Porto team, by the way, at the time of a very well-known
08:53player in Jean Matinho was part of that squad. It was a fantastic team, don't get me wrong,
08:58but they were up against also a very good Benfica side at the time. There was a few
09:01other good teams. And he did a brilliant job at Porto in his two years there. And as
09:05I say, back-to-back titles, really, really impressive.
09:08I would, I mean, look, from the outside in, because he's not worked in England, obviously
09:13I can only do my research to a certain extent from outside, but it does seem to me like
09:19he hasn't really replicated that same success. And this was 2011 to 2013 we were talking
09:24about. He has gone to some big clubs, like he's won the league in Greece with Olympiacos.
09:29He won the league in China with Shanghai. He's been to Turkey with Fenerbahce twice.
09:36He's been to Corinthians and Flamengo in Brazil, but he's been to Saudi Arabia twice.
09:43He's currently there with Al-Shabaab as well. But he has jumped around a lot, a lot of different
09:49clubs. And I think it's important to highlight one of them, which was in 2016, he joined
09:551806 Munich, who were in the second division of Germany at the time, took over them on
10:01the 18th of December, 2016, which incredibly is only a few days away from now, as we are
10:06recording. Ended up taking them down into the third division of German football, finishing
10:13third from bottom at the time. Now I'm sure there'll be lots of context that goes into that.
10:18For obvious reasons, I wasn't covering that German club at the time. So I think giving
10:22him the benefit of the doubt is important. But we also have to highlight exactly what his career
10:25has been. Very, very impressive early on, had a tough time in the last few years, but has come
10:32very close to the Premier League in the past with Everton on a couple of occasions, and is desperate
10:38to work in the Premier League. As it stands, Wolves are in talks with him. There was a release
10:42clause that Wolves are willing to pay. The manager is keen on it. And look, things can change
10:47quickly. But as of, you know, 20 to 5 this evening on Sunday night, it looks likely that
10:53Wolves will get him in the dugout in time for the trip to Leicester.
10:58And one person who doesn't know very, very well is Mr. João Gomes, who was suspended for this
11:03game, but played with him in Brazil. So, you know, let's expect a recall for João Gomes at
11:09Leicester City if he is in the dugout by then.
11:11My word, let's hope to expect a recall for João Gomes, regardless of who's the manager,
11:15because we could spend the next half an hour talking about some performances from
11:19the Ipswich game. But yeah, look, he's a manager that has been sort of regarded as progressive and
11:25attacking on plenty of his teams. He's played a lot of back threes and back fives at different
11:29clubs, has been doing that with Al-Shabaab, has been, did that with Fenerbahce. His Porto team
11:35did play 4-3-3 and was very attacking. In Brazil, I think he was more well known, from what I can
11:41understand, for being quite defensively rigid. So, brings with him characteristics of hopefully
11:50a team that in Wolves, which we all know what the problems are, fix that leaky defence and
11:54keep the attack as free-flowing as it has been at times this season. It's easier said than done,
12:00but if you can do that, this Wolves team has got quality to stay in the league. And of course,
12:03January will be very important for the new manager, if it is to be, Vitor Pereira.
12:09It's going to be a very interesting few days. Gary Neal, no longer head coach of Wolverhampton
12:13Wanderers. Vitor Pereira, the big front-runner for all the latest on that news, on that managerial
12:18appointment. When it happens, make sure you log on to expressonstar.com.