Leicester City must steer clear of Gary O’Neil - This worrying Wolves trait is why | OneFootball

Wolves' worrying defensive stats under Gary O'Neil should be ringing alarm bells at Leicester City as he emerges as the top target to be manager.

Leicester City appear to be making progress on their hunt for a new manager, with Gary O’Neil emerging as the favourite.

Despite suffering relegation from the Premier League back in April, the Foxes hierarchy has been surprisingly slow at making decisions going into the new season.

However, Ruud van Nistelrooy was finally relieved of his duties at the end of June, with focus then turning to naming his successor.

Gary O’Neil is the favourite to take over at Leicester City

Even with the threat of a points deduction hanging over the team, the Leicester job will still be an attractive one.

The club boasts some excellent players by Championship standards, the training ground is brilliant and they have a productive academy.

So, it’s no surprise a host of names have been linked with the vacancy, with FLW exclusively revealing discussions had been had with Chris Wilder, whilst Sean Dyche is another name in the frame, along with Danny Rohl.

But, the latest development suggests O'Neil is the leading candidate, and you can see why the 42-year-old is on the radar of the Leicester hierarchy.

Gary O’Neil is a young coach with potential

O’Neil has had two managerial roles in his short coaching career, and they have both come into the Premier League, which is obviously a positive.

He kept a Bournemouth side in the top-flight despite many tipping them for relegation, before overachieving with Wolves during his first season at Molineux as they came 14th, even after selling several key players and operating on a modest budget.

That will be relevant to the Leicester role, as O’Neil has shown he can work under challenging circumstances, with the Foxes sure to be losing some star men over the coming weeks.

Even though O’Neil did well initially, warning signs were there at the end of his first full season with Wolves, as they won one of their final ten games, as well as losing in the FA Cup quarter-final to Coventry City.

Wolves’ lack of defensive organisation should concern the Leicester City hierarchy

In that period, Wolves failed to keep a clean sheet, and that carried on into the previous campaign, which is the major red flag against O’Neil - the team simply couldn’t defend under his guidance.

In the 16 Premier League games before he was sacked, Wanderers recorded one shut-out, and they conceded a remarkable 40 goals, which left them in 19th place, with just nine points, as relegation looked a real possibility.

Staggeringly, half of those goals came via set-plays, which is always a bad look for a manager, and even the dismissal of a set-piece coach just months after he joined, didn’t change things on that front.

The team lacked organisation, they didn't respond to his methods, and he lacked the authority to change things as the same mistakes were repeated.

Overall, that means O’Neil’s Wolves side kept six clean sheets in 54 Premier League games whilst he was in charge.

He will rightly point out that the defence was weak, but the reality is that Vitor Pereira came in and kept back-to-back clean sheets immediately, which was before the influential Emmanuel Agbadou arrived in January to really help shore Wolves up at the back.

O’Neil believes he has learnt from his time in the Black Country, and he confirmed he has spent time looking into how he can address set-plays moving forward.

Nevertheless, it has to be a worry for Leicester, as they need a manager in place who can lead them back to the Premier League, and, realistically, they will need to show defensive solidity to do just that.

Due to the off-field situation, the Foxes aren’t going to be in a position where they have a team that is levels above the majority of the league, as was the case when Enzo Maresca was in charge.

Now, the focus will be on reshaping the squad, shifting higher earners, and promoting from the academy, whilst getting results in the process.

So, it will be more of a grind, and any successful team at this level needs to keep clean sheets.

Given how calamitous Wolves were defensively under O’Neil, the Leicester hierarchy would be taking a major risk in giving him the responsibility to lead this new era at the King Power Stadium.