Norwich City has approached Gary O’Neil to assess his interest in succeeding Liam Manning as Canaries manager, Football League World can exclusively reveal.
Nobody expected the 2025/26 Championship season to begin like this at Carrow Road.
After 15 games, Norwich City ranks 23rd in the division, with two victories and nine points.
Leicester City handed them their tenth defeat of the season on Saturday, and it was one too many for Liam Manning, who was dismissed of his duties shortly after the final whistle.
Norwich City makes touch with Gary O’Neil as Liam Manning’s succession plan is set up.
Football League World has exclusively learned that Norwich City has approached Gary O’Neil to gauge his interest in becoming the Canaries’ new manager.
Following Vitor Pereira’s resignation, the 42-year-old appeared to be in talks about returning to Molineux as Wolves’ new manager.
However, he has now pulled out of the running, revealing on Sky Sports punditry duty for Wolves’ match against Chelsea on Saturday evening that “it didn’t feel like the right time or right fit.”
However, he may feel differently about Norwich City, a club he is extremely familiar with.
Indeed, between 2014 and 2016, O’Neil appeared over 50 times for the Canaries and contributed to the club’s promotion to the Premier League in the 2014/15 season, which ended in a Norwich victory against Middlesbrough at Wembley Stadium in the Championship play-off final.
Gary O’Neill might be a significant coup for Norwich City.
At 42, O’Neil is still in the early stages of his coaching career, but he has already established himself as a promising manager.
Bournemouth appointed O’Neil as their first full-time manager in the summer of 2022, and his Cherries team did what many freshly promoted Championship sides fail to do in their first season in the Premier League: survive.
A 15th-place result in the 2022/23 season set the stage for the club’s fast rise through English football’s top flight, with the club finishing 12th and ninth in the following two seasons.
Following the 22/23 season, O’Neil was recruited as Wolves manager, and he led the team to a solid 14th-place finish, 20 points ahead of Luton Town, who finished the season in 18th place with 26 points.
Given Wolves’ present situation, that ranking has aged well, and despite being fired by the club in December of last year with the team in the relegation zone, he left with his reputation as one of the best young English coaches still intact.
Given that he has only ever managed at Premier League level in his coaching career, persuading him to descend not only into the Championship, but to the bottom of it as it is for Norwich, would undoubtedly be viewed as a big coup by the Canaries.
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