Gary O’Neill could keep his job but Wolves will need major surgery to prevent them from returning to the Championship

Victory over Southampton on Saturday could be enough to keep Gary O’Neill in the job, but major surgery will be needed to fix the problems threatening to send Wolves into the Championship.

Blame it on a brutal fixture list, crass VAR calls or losing Pedro Neto and Max Kilman, last season’s best players, in the summer.

The reality is that very few managers survive a run of one win in 20, especially when the price of relegation from the Premier League is so high.

But O’Neill is not the only one to blame. Chairman Geoff Shea and sporting director Matt Hobbs, as well as their under-pressure manager, should also be in the spotlight.

Since he sacked Nuna Espirito Santo at the end of the 2020-21 season, Shea’s approach to recruitment and dealing with managers has been haphazard at best.

Gary O’Neill’s Wolves were held to a 2-2 draw by Crystal Palace in the Premier League on Saturday.

Shea replaced Nuno with Bruno Lage, but did not retain him in January 2022 when Wolves were going well. Wolves then splashed out £120m on some of the players Lage wanted in the summer of 2022, only to release him in October.

Julen Lopetegui came and went at the club after nine months, hinting that he had no knowledge of the club’s financial situation. If you’re paying a manager £8m a year, it might be worth giving him an idea of ​​what the books look like.

Now, just two months after signing a new four-year deal, O’Neill is fighting to keep his job after Saturday’s chaotic 2-2 draw with Crystal Palace. For a manager who prides himself on his attention to detail, the basic defensive mistakes his team are making will reflect badly on him, especially against a depleted Palace side missing key players like Eberechi Eze, Adam Wharton and Jefferson Lerma.

However, O’Neill is not the only one to blame. Hobbs became sporting director in November 2022 and has enjoyed some success in the market, including the £15.7m signing of Brazilian midfielder Joao Gomez, who was superb on Saturday. Jorgen Strand Larsen, on loan from Celta, has scored four goals in 10 appearances for the struggling side. Mario Lemina and Craig Dawson were great.

However, his failure to sign a centre-back to compensate for the loss of Kilman has been puzzling and the jury is out on some of his other signings. As O’Neill admitted, Wolves do not have the financial means to sign proven Premier League players. Instead, they are trying to bring in young players from abroad with a possible resale value.

Wolves are bottom of the table and have not won any of their first 10 matches

Brighton and Brentford lead the way in this market. It is hard to imagine any of these clubs signing Jean-Ricner Bellegarde, Boubacar Traore or Enso Gonzalez. And O’Neill doesn’t yet seem to trust Andre, Pedro Lima or Rodrigo Gomez, who arrived last summer.

O’Neill knows the game. Unless Wolves beat Southampton, he may not survive the international break. However, if the hierarchy think they can fix things by sacking the manager, Wolves are in an even bigger mess than we thought.