Wolves plan to reward Gary O’Neil with a new contract but will wait until the summer to hold talks as they prioritise achieving a top-eight Premier League finish. O’Neil has reinvigorated Wolves since succeeding Julen Lopetegui 48 hours before the start of the season.
Wolves are 10th, six points off sixth and in the FA Cup quarter-finals, despite being widely expected to struggle after an exodus of players. Lopetegui, who secured survival after taking over four months into last season, left because he felt the squad was not good enough to avoid a relegation scrap. Wolves allowed a raft of senior players, including the former captain Rúben Neves, to depart last summer to meet profit and sustainability regulations.
O’Neil, one of four English managers in the top flight, signed a three-year contract but is in line to be given a new deal. “That’s naturally where this is going – he’s done well enough to have that conversation,” said the Wolves sporting director, Matt Hobbs. “Part of the conversation will be the plan for the club and that’s where you have to have the honest conversations about what it looks like going forward. That is an inevitable situation we find ourselves in this summer, for sure.
- Download the Guardian app from the iOS App Store on iPhone or the Google Play store on Android by searching for 'The Guardian'.
- If you already have the Guardian app, make sure you’re on the most recent version.
- In the Guardian app, tap the Menu button at the bottom right, then go to Settings (the gear icon), then Notifications.
- Turn on sport notifications.
“We want to finish the season well and have the FA Cup to look forward to. We have more to play for with the league and the squad drive that a lot. I was chatting to Mario [Lemina] just after Christmas and he said he is expecting us to be there or thereabouts in terms of [qualifying for] Europe.
“These players have an expectation on themselves that if they perform to the level they can, they believe they have the ability to get into the top eight. That’s been their ambition and Gary is the same. No players are coming to talk to me about new deals or anything like that; we’re keeping our eye on the job and in the summer we’ll take care of everything else.”
Wolves will likely sell one prized asset this summer to stay within the league’s financial parameters. The Portugal forward Pedro Neto and midfielder João Gomes, who recently earned his first Brazil call-up, are among the key performers being monitored by elite clubs.
“We don’t want to sell more than two starters,” Hobbs said. “But if big clubs come [in] I’ve never been the person to stand in someone’s way as long as we can reinvest in the right way to move forward. We showed with other players leaving last year that we’re able to move forward with three or four starters going. We’re always looking to improve and we have the ability to turn down big offers, but every player has their number.”
Hobbs said Wolves wanted to continue to recruit value-for-money players, after the £35m buy Fábio Silva and £28m Gonçalo Guedes, failed to work, with both out on loan, at Rangers and Villarreal respectively. Neto and Gomes were £12m signings and the Portugal defender Toti Gomes, who recently signed a new long-term contract, cost £1m. The Wolves captain, Max Kilman, cost £40,000 from Maidenhead.
Wolves host Fulham on Saturday and second-tier Coventry a week later, hoping to reach the Cup semi-finals for the first time since 2019.
