Whoever decided to follow Liam Rosenior at RC Strasbourg Alsace was going to be met with a challenging situation. Rosenior’s midseason departure to Chelsea was never going to go down well with a fan...
Whoever decided to follow Liam Rosenior at RC Strasbourg Alsace was going to be met with a challenging situation. Rosenior’s midseason departure to Chelsea was never going to go down well with a fanbase that has made it clear they do not appreciate being the junior partner in the multiclub model set up by their shared owners, BlueCo. As the Fédération Supporters RCS stated, “Rosenior’s transfer marks another humiliating step in Racing’s subjugation to Chelsea.”
The decision to appoint Gary O’Neil, an outsider to Ligue 1, will do little to soothe these ongoing tensions. BlueCo might be hopeful that, like Rosenior before him, who had no profile in France, O’Neil will be able to win the respect of the supporters through results. Albeit this is a task that has perhaps been made harder because of Rosenior’s exit. Strasbourg supporters are already joking that if O’Neil does well, then the call from London will follow shortly after.
Although some in Strasbourg might be more concerned about his managerial record, and if success in France will be a given. The Englishman has only been in charge of two teams, AFC Bournemouth and Wolverhampton Wanderers, and his success with these two Premier League clubs has been mixed.
Unlucky in love
O’Neil took charge of Bournemouth as caretaker manager in August 2022 following Scott Parker’s sacking four games into the season. By November, he was appointed to the role permanently and helped guide the newly promoted side to 15th and away from relegation by the end of the campaign. He was sacked in June 2023 shortly after the season concluded, with the club wanting to go in a different direction and appointing Andoni Iraola.
That summer, he was picked up by Wolverhampton Wanderers after Julien Lopetegui walked away from the club three days before the start of the 2023/24 campaign. In his first season, he led the club to a 14th-place finish and oversaw league doubles over Chelsea and Tottenham, as well as a victory over Manchester City. However, his time in charge would quickly unravel in the following campaign. He was sacked with the club in the relegation zone, following 11 defeats in 16 games.
There was a feeling that O’Neil had been unlucky in both of his previous jobs. He did the task that was asked of him at Bournemouth, keeping them in the league, but the club believed that Iraola would take them to the next level. At Wolves, he was in part a victim of the club’s present trajectory, wherein the club has sold their best players year on year without significantly strengthening. Which is in no small part the reason why the club are currently sat bottom of the league table with six points after 20 games.
Strasbourg: a blank slate?
Supporters of both of his previous clubs would suggest that he has some culpability in his fate. Neither fanbase warmed to the Englishman. Bournemouth supporters remember his football as turgid and have since flirted with European qualification under Iraola, while Wolves fans were close to uproar when he was linked with a surprise return to the club in November. The reaction may well have been the reason behind his last-minute decision to withdraw from the running.
However, what’s often lost in the criticism of O’Neil is that this is a young head coach who is still in the early stages of his career. Even if it went wrong by the end of his Wolves tenure, he has still shown plenty of promise and that he has the capacity to become a very good manager. Furthermore, the role he played in helping to develop players like Rayan Aït-Nouri, Matheus Cunha, Pedro Neto, and Max Kilman should not be forgotten.
The way his time at Wolves ended does not necessarily have to define him, and as he insinuated in an interview with The Guardian, perhaps it has been a moment to reflect, reassess, and “Get ready to go again.” Something that chimes with the opportunity offered at Strasbourg: a blank slate largely free from his reputation in the Premier League and a chance for him to bounce back in an environment that will lean heavily into his ability to develop and bring the best out of a squad of young, impressionable, and wildly talented players.
More to come from Gary O’Neil
There is a temptation to paint O’Neil in broad brush strokes as a boring middle-of-the-road Premier League manager, when that is quite far from reality. After just two and a half seasons in management, we frankly don’t have the full picture of who he is and how far he could progress. But from what he has already shown during his short time as a head coach, there is a sense that there is far more to come. And while O’Neil’s name does not yet get the pulses racing in Alsace, his appointment could well be looked back upon as a canny one.
Category: General Sports
