Wolverhampton Wanderers manager Gary O’Neil appears to be hanging onto his job by a thread after his side were smashed 4-0 by Everton in the Premier League earlier this week.
The Telegraph’s John Percy has reported that the English head coach will not be sacked before the clash with fellow strugglers West Ham United on Monday night, however.
Wolves are currently 19th in the table and have won just two of their 14 matches in the division, with both wins coming in November – against Southampton and Fulham.
With O’Neil under mounting pressure at the Molineux, the Old Gold board are reportedly looking at potential replacements for O’Neil in the dugout.
Wolves eyeing former Premier League managers
According to The Telegraph, Wolves are eyeing up Graham Potter, Rob Edwards, and David Moyes in the event that they decide to part ways with their current head coach.
The report claims, however, that there are doubts over whether or not Potter, whose last job was at Chelsea, would be willing to take on a relegation battle midway through the season.
It also states that Edwards, whose Luton team are 19th in the Championship, is an outsider in the running to replace O’Neil at the Premier League side.
This suggests that Moyes, who Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola once said he admired for his long career and calm head in the dugout, could be the most likely candidate at this moment in time.
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Wolves could, now, land a big upgrade on the struggling O’Neil by deciding to move for the out-of-work tactician to help them to avoid relegation from the top-flight.
Why David Moyes is an upgrade on Gary O'Neil
The former Manchester United head coach, who typically deploys a 4-2-3-1 formation, is an experienced boss who has managed in 19 Premier League seasons.
His team finished in the top half of the table in 13 of those 19 seasons, with West Ham, Everton, and Manchester United, and this shows that he knows how to manage a successful side at that level, whilst he has also excelled in Europe – winning the Conference League with the Hammers in 2023.
Since FBref started collecting xG data in the 2017/18 campaign, no Moyes team has ever finished inside the bottom four for Expected Goal Difference, which essentially shows how well the team is coached by the quality of chances they create minus the quality of chances that they concede.
Whereas, O’Neil finished 14th with Wolves last season but his side were 17th on Expected Goal Difference, with -21.00, and his Bournemouth side avoided the drop in 15th in the previous campaign despite finishing bottom on Expected Goal Difference, with -25.3.
This means that the Englishman’s teams, in both of his full seasons as a manager to date, have struggled in the Premier League, conceding far more high quality chances than they create, and that appears to finally be catching up with him this term.
Club
Games
Wins
Draws
Losses
West Ham (2nd spell)
230
103
43
84
West Ham (1st spell)
31
9
10
12
Sunderland
43
8
7
28
Real Sociedad
42
12
15
15
Man Utd
51
26
10
15
Everton
518
221
134
163
Preston
211
103
53
55
Moyes has a proven track record of coaching teams well in the English top-flight and has shown, with Everton and the Hammers, that he can take them to the next level to finish in the top half to compete in Europe, which is why he would come in as a big upgrade on O’Neil.
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