6 days Ago By [email protected] (Peter Smith)
There was a furious atmosphere at Molineux as Wolves slipped to an injury time home defeat to Ipswich Town in their battle to stay in the Premier League. It was a result that piled even more pressure on Gary O'Neil and he gave a revealing interview to BBC Radio WM when he admitted that 'if you're not good enough' you can expect to be replaced. Radio WM: It looks like players are not responding to you? Gary O'Neil: It's not that they're not responding.
It's obviously that under the stress there they have decided to switch roles with each other. Players do stuff like that a lot but you need to do it for good reason, you need to make good decisions. Top players make good decisions under pressure and that last one we made a real poor decision.
I'm pretty sure that if we're in the right spot, the guy who's meant to be there goes and heads that away. It's been the story really, the physicality has been an issue for us. I said after Everton that Pickford had booted the ball to Calvert-Lewin and they put the balls in the box.
That was it really. It's really hard for me to protect the group from that. We press well and get Dara O'Shea stuck in the corner, they boot it to Delap and score from it.
It's very, very difficult to protect the boys from everything. To get the maximum out of them like we did today, the subs had a good impact, the changes had a good impact, we created loads and loads of chances and good momentum in the stadium even though it's tough to create momentum today with how the fans are feeling, how the group's feeling, we managed to do it with energy and passion and togetherness and quality. But all of it is under massive stress because we've given Liam Delap a goal.
He wasn't the one who scored it but for him to run through the middle of the pitch and brush defenders out of the way is really, really difficult to find a way to be successful if we're going to suffer goals like that. READ MORE: Ole Gunnar Solskjaer speculation rages as he attends crunch Wolves clash READ MORE: New names already in the frame to be Wolves' next manager Are you going to survive this, Gary? Me? That's not up to me. I'll be fine.
There's loads of good work being done here but nobody will see it and rightly so because of the score and the results. Do the club appreciate it? I don't know. I think they understand the difficulty of the situation.
That team today was well prepared, understood everything, gave everything and still wasn't good enough to beat Ipswich at home even though they should. If your Achilles heel and your flaws are that bad that you can't cope with two real basic things like that then the rest of it becomes irrelevant because every time a team boots it long, every time a team puts a ball in the box you feel like we're going to have a problem. We are massively lacking in those areas.
When your weaknesses are that weak it takes a hell of a lot of effort to make up for it. We're doing so much with the group to try to help in those moments but we're not finding an answer. We have another week to try to find an answer before Leicester and then January comes.
Is the answer in your dressing room at the moment? It doesn't look like it, does it? At this moment in time we've tried every player. Fans always think it's the player who they haven't seen who is the answer. It was Carlos Forbs and then it wasn't and then it was Rodrigo Gomes and then it wasn't and then it's Tommy Doyle and then it isn't.
It isn't that. We have a massive, massive problem with physicality and when we really need to dig in and find a way to cope with direct play and cope with balls into the box we're falling short at this moment. I'm pushing them in there to find the answer.
They know that, they know I want to find the answer with the group that's in there. But the nature of this business we're in, football, is that if you're not good enough then you get replaced. That will be me, that'll be the players.
That stands for everybody. Unless we can find the answers in there, there will be a change. There will be a change of players, a change of coach to make sure the answer is found.
Right time to go? Click HERE to join the debate.
