Alious
Gary Neville has been left eating his words after Wolverhampton Wanderers pulled off an impressive Premier League survival campaign—despite his gloomy mid-season prediction that they were doomed for relegation.
Earlier in the season, Wolves looked every bit a team in crisis. With a string of poor performances under then-manager Gary O’Neil, they found themselves rooted in 19th place, winless in their first ten league games and leaking goals at an alarming rate. O’Neil’s tenure came to an end in December amid mounting pressure and dire results, prompting widespread belief that relegation was inevitable.
Among the doubters was former Manchester United captain Gary Neville, who, speaking on the *It’s Called Soccer* podcast, named Wolves as one of his three picks for relegation—alongside Southampton and Ipswich Town. His bleak verdict came after watching Wolves limp through a dismal performance against Liverpool, in which he felt they were “absolutely awful.”
“I just don’t see how they turn this around,” Neville had said. “Unless they do something dramatic in January, I can’t see them staying up.”
What Neville couldn’t foresee, however, was the transformative impact of Vitor Pereira, the Portuguese tactician who took the reins after O’Neil’s exit. Under Pereira, Wolves were reborn. With tactical discipline, renewed attacking energy, and defensive solidity, they climbed steadily up the table, eventually securing safety with several games to spare.
While Neville was skeptical, fellow Sky Sports pundit Jamie Carragher was quick to recognise Pereira’s influence. During an April episode of *Monday Night Football*, Carragher praised the Wolves boss for orchestrating one of the season’s most impressive turnarounds.
“He’s done an outstanding job,” Carragher remarked. “Wolves looked like a class above the promoted sides under him. He’s shown exactly why he was so close to landing the Everton job a few years back.”
In hindsight, Neville’s prediction now looks wildly off the mark—and it’s Pereira’s tactical nous and leadership that have made all the difference. Instead of sinking, Wolves surged, proving that with the right manager, even a team on the brink can find its way back to safety and respectability.
Alious
