Michael O’Neill, Northern Ireland’s gold manager, has been sacked by Stoke City’s championship team just five games after the start of the new season. The Potters occupy the 21st place with only one victory in the first five league matches.
The club lost 1-0 to newly promoted Sunderland on Saturday and were also eliminated from this year’s Carabao Cup by League One side Morecambe earlier this month.
Stoke announced that Dean Holden, deputy manager of Michael O’Neill, will temporarily take over the team while the club is looking for the right candidate for the full-time position.
John Coates, co-chairman of Stoke City, issued a statement on the dismissal of O’Neill:
Michael O’Neill’s time at Stoke
O’Neill joined Stoke after leaving the Northern Ireland national team, replacing Nathan Jones as manager, with the club finishing second in the championship.
He managed to save the club from relegation peril in his first season, when the club took the 15th place. belegte.in the Potters finished 14th in each of the next two seasons.
Michael O’Neill did an excellent job of stabilizing the club after his arrival in 2019, as he fixed several problems such as lack of motivation of players and refusal to leave the club due to excessive wages.
The Northern Ireland managed to reduce the payroll from 40 million pounds to 20 million pounds, focusing more on young players such as Tyrese Campbell and Nathan Collins, who brought 12 million pounds to the club after joining Burnley in 2021.
Having brought this stability to O’Neill, it was expected that he could build on this and lead Stoke to the top ranks of the table, action for promotion and finally bring them back to the Premier League for the first time since the 2017/18 season. Unfortunately, this was never achieved.
After all, O’Neill’s fall was a bad form that dates back to the second half of last season. It was becoming increasingly obvious that a change of leadership would be required for the Potters to fulfil their pre-season ambitions of a promotion challenge.
Who’s next?
The fact that Stoke pushed O’Neill’s withdrawal so early in the season and a week before the transfer window suggests that they already have a replacement.
Indeed, Stoke players would be shocked by the news, considering it’s early days and Michael O’Neill has been well supported in the transfer market, considering the Potters have recruited nine new faces this summer.
Sean Dyche became the favorite of the first hour to occupy the potters’ dishes. Given his league place with Burnley and his help to stabilise in the Premier League, it would be a very wise nomination, even if he qualifies them for European qualification in one season.
