Nightmare before Christmas for Premier League bottom two as both teams axe managers

The Premier League sack race claimed its next victims on 15 December, after rock-bottom teams Wolverhampton Wanderers and Southampton both fired their managers following calamitous defeats. Two of The Boar Sport’s writers consider the unfortunate tenures of the outgoing coaches, and ask whether there’s any chance their teams can still avoid going down at the end of the season.

Wolverhampton Wanderers – Anna Bickerton

Wolves’ Gary O’Neil was the first managerial casualty of the weekend. If Jack Taylor’s last-gasp header for Ipswich wasn’t the final nail in the coffin, depriving the beleaguered club of crucial points in the relegation battle, the chaos that erupted on the pitch at full time certainly was.

Frustrations boiled over and tensions frayed as the final whistle blew at Molineux on Saturday with Rayan Ait-Nouri earning a red card for clashes in the tunnel with Liam Delap, and forward Matheus Cunha now facing a potential FA investigation for his role in the disorder.

This lack of discipline has become a worrying theme in recent weeks. Just days earlier, Mario Lemina’s post-match altercation with Jarrod Bowen during the loss to West Ham had resulted in him being stripped of the captaincy, while goalkeeper Jose Sa’s angry exchange with supporters following the defeat to Bournemouth last month only deepened the sense of instability as Wolves struggled to escape the relegation zone. Just 18 hours later, manager Gary O’Neil would be sacked.

Having taken over from Julen Lopetegui just 4 days before the 2022/23 Premier League season kicked off, the Englishman was very much thrust into the role 15 months ago. O’Neil has managed to leave Wolves fans with some memorable moments; he oversaw the club’s first victory in the Black Country Derby since 2011, a result made even sweeter as it marked Wolves’ first triumph at the Hawthorns in nearly three decades. However, those moments of joy have been rare in a season marred by inconsistency and defensive frailties, leaving the club a precarious 19th with a measly 9 points.

Some have pointed fingers at the club’s ownership, Fosun International, as Wolves’ struggles deepen. Club Chairman Jeff Shi had insisted as recently as Thursday that the board remained “united” in their support for O’Neil, but the decision to part ways suggests cracks had already begun to show.

O’Neil himself had bemoaned the club’s transfer decisions throughout the summer, as Wolves saw €200 million worth of talent leave, including key departures such as club captain and centre-back Max Kilman to West Ham. Replacements were few, and the squad was further plagued by injuries, exacerbating the woes caused by the club’s glaring absence. Despite this, the English manager’s in-game decisions and his ability to extract the best from the remaining talent faced mounting criticism from supporters.

Fans argued that Wolves’ squad still boasts undeniable quality with the likes of Matheus Cunha and Joao Gomes on the roster, it isn’t difficult to label the Midlands club as capable of much more than their league position suggests. For all his grievances about transfers and VAR, it is perhaps O’Neil’s own reluctance to shoulder blame that ultimately sealed his fate.

As replacement talks progress, with Al Shabab boss Vitor Pereira emerging as the frontrunner to take charge at Molineux, the January transfer window could be a pivotal chance to strengthen the squad and revive the club’s Premier League survival hopes.

Whether Wolves will seize this chance, or whether financial constraints and indecision will hinder their efforts, remains to be seen.

Southampton – Martin Day

The greater the rise, the harder the fall – and what a fall it must have felt for Southampton’s Russell Martin, as the Saints were shattered 5-nil on their own home turf.

Just six months on from the dizzying high of a Championship play-off triumph, when the fans roared his name, all that greeted Martin come Sunday’s half-time whistle was boos. Not that he was there to hear it, having fled the pitch ten minutes earlier. By the time the match
ended, his career was over: what few supporters were left called out to the boss to give them a wave, then jeered in his face when he did. An hour later, and the man who returned the Saints to the top flight was gone.

Now, football fans are left wondering where it went wrong. A charitable take might be that Martin was too good – that his tactics delivered a team to the Premier League who simply weren’t Premier League ready. Indeed, through the entire season so far, Southampton’s opponents have had nothing but praise for the manager of the team they’d just thrashed: Pep Guardiola applauded his ‘ideas’; Arne Slot hailed the Saints a “joy to watch”, and mused on the “unlucky” results obtained thus far by Martin.

To be fair, Southampton have been extraordinarily unlucky: controversial VAR calls, player injuries, and split-second screw ups have cost Martin’s side half a dozen genuine opportunities to win. Yet perhaps the other teams appreciated Southampton’s highfalutin tactics simply because they failed to yield results: what could be called an admirable commitment to principles after five failed games mutated into a total refusal to adapt after 15.

Individual error after individual error surely drove home the fact that Martin’s team weren’t capable of playing at the standard his strategy demanded – yet he persisted, to the point that on Sunday’s game his own players appeared to completely abandon their coach’s plan without anything to replace it.

Now, the Saints are left marooned at the bottom of the table, and nothing short of a Christmas miracle will save them from tumbling straight back down to the Championship.

Doubtlessly, Sport Republic remember the chaos of their first year as owners, when disastrous Nathan Jones was binned off after just three months and Saints crashed out the Premier League regardless – it’s presumably why Russell Martin managed to hold on as long as he did.

Everyone involved now will surely hope for some kind of orderly revival under a bright new mind, but heaven knows who would be willing to accept this poisoned red-and-white chalice. Only four teams have ever avoided relegation when bottom of the table at Christmas, as Southampton is now certain to be – and none of them have been nine points adrift of safety.

The window of opportunity to avoid failure is closing fast – perhaps it already has. January will be a crucial chance for whichever sacrificial lamb ends up as manager to shape the team in their image: the Saints’ finances are still healthy, for now. If any team could pull off an escape as great as this, it would be Southampton, who have a history of odds-defying scrambles up the table. Those were, however, a long time ago, and the odds were never quite as bad as this.