Gary O’Neil has shown the tactical nous that saw his Wolverhampton Wanderers side get the better of his old club Bournemouth on Saturday.
Wolves came from behind to beat the Cherries 2-1 at the Vitality Stadium thanks to goals from Matheus Cunha and Sasa Kalajdzic, which saw O’Neil gain some revenge on the club that sacked him in June.
Speaking as a guest on Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football, the Bournemouth boss demonstrated to Jamie Carragher just how his side got the better of the opposition with a display of his tactics for the game.
The 40-year-old spoke of what he had been working on during training in the international break and how he created a four versus three in his team’s favour when carrying the ball out of defence.
‘These are things we worked on in training.’ O’Neil began before breaking down his tactics during the game.
Gary O’Neil was a guest on Monday Night Football and explained showed off his tactics
O’Neil explains how he managed to created space to get a four versus three in Wolves’ favour
The approach led to Wolves getting out of defence and led to them beating O’Neil’s old club
‘So Bouba (Traore) starts to move Philip Billing across the pitch and Joao Gomes recognises that’s the trigger to come down.
‘Alex Scott will then appear late to try and fix it and give them their spare man, and then it’s Cunha who has rotated with Pedro and he’ll arrive to complete the four v three, the centre-back doesn’t want to come in with him and we’re out.
‘The lads can see it’s something they’ve worked on for a couple for weeks and can see it’s on. We don’t have success from it every time, but there’s probably 15 instances in the game where we’ve managed to get up the pitch from the work we’ve done in the last couple of weeks.
‘But we did score a goal from the exact four vs threes, which is every manager’s dream’.
The win condemned the manager who replaced O’Neil Andoni Iraola, to another defeat and means he is still waiting for his first league win as Bournemouth manager.
O’Neil was sacked by Bournemouth in June but has enjoyed a solid start as boss of Wolves
Pressure is mounting on the Spaniard after no Premier League wins in his first nine games, with the Cherries only victories coming in the Carabao Cup.
This weekend they face a crucial home game against fellow strugglers Burnley, who sit alongside them in the bottom three, having only won game so far this season.
O’Neil’s Wolves, however, notched up their third win of the campaign over the Cherries and sit comfortably in 12th place in the league under the boss who was appointed just four days before the start of the season.
They are next in action on Saturday evening when all eyes will be on O’Neil’s latest plan as he attempts to take points of Newcastle at Molineux.