While Gary O’Neil and Bruno Lage at Wolves have quite different backgrounds, one pattern has been observed. With O’Neil’s arrival last summer, Wolves are in a much stronger position as the Englishman keeps improving the team.
Wolves began the 2023–24 season in dismal form, therefore the manager had little opportunity to get to know his team after arriving at Molineux a few days prior to the start of the season. As soon as the manager saw his formation wasn’t working, the results quickly began to improve. He decided to switch to a back five, which worked.
Bruno Lage Wolves struggle resurfaces
With the players that O’Neil has in his squad, switching to a back three with two wing-backs worked perfectly for the Old Gold.
The manager went back to using a four-man defense despite the team’s success the previous season, but it hasn’t worked well this time around as Wolves has given up nine goals in their first three games.
As a theme that has plagued the team before resurfacing, only Everton have given up more goals than O’Neil’s team, suggesting that change should be taken into consideration. When discussing the season’s beginning on The Keen & Judah Show, writer Liam Keen saw parallels between O’Neil and former Wolves general manager Bruno Lage.
Other managers have tried a four, Bruno Lage being the obvious example who attempted to play a back four in his second season, it didn’t go well.
“There were a lot of parallels to this year in the sense that it’s been a tough start, there’s an experienced defender not starting – Conor Coady during Lage’s reign.
“Dawson was certainly left out at the start of the season but came back with vengeance against Forest.”
There will be hope that comparisons between Lage and O’Neil’s second seasons end there, given that the Portuguese coach was dismissed in October 2022 as Wolves sat in 18th.
Gary O’Neil should consider change
A lot of Lage’s failures had to do with his attempt to change the identity of how the club operate best on the pitch.
While O’Neil is not at the former coach’s level, there is some concern creeping in as to when improvement will be seen, with Wolves yet to record a win.
Things aren’t about to get any easier for the squad, with the next five Premier League fixtures coming against Newcastle, Aston Villa, Liverpool, Brentford and Manchester City.
The idea of edging towards November without a win on the board is unfathomable, however, Wolves expert Keen urged fans not to be ‘too scared’ of O’Neil’s defensive plan.
“I don’t think people should be too scared of change, you can be wary and anxious of change but I don’t think it’s a bad thing.
“If Gary O’Neil finds reasons to believe that a back four is the way Wolves should play, there’s no reason right now why we shouldn’t have faith in that.”
Only time will tell if the Old Gold can find sanctuary playing with four at the back, with little time to adapt to change as the fixtures pile up in both frequency and difficulty.
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