Gary O’Neil insisted he is not concerned by speculation over his future after Jack Taylor’s stoppage-time goal condemned Wolves to a 2-1 home defeat to fellow strugglers Ipswich.
Wolves’ defensive woes were on display once again as they conceded a calamitous opener 15 minutes in, recorded as a Matt Doherty own goal although that told only half the story, and then allowed Taylor space to head home from a corner at the death after Matheus Cunha dragged them level.
A fourth consecutive defeat was greeted by a chorus of boos at Molineux and emotions amongst the players spilled over as Rayan Ait-Nouri was shown a second yellow card after the whistle while Cunha also had to be restrained, just days after ugly scenes following the 2-1 defeat at West Ham.
“I am honestly not interested in my own position,” O’Neil said. “I know the work that I do every day and I know the situation that we’re in. I know that getting this group to perform the way they did took a lot of work today.
“So of course people can point a finger at me but some of the responsibility has to land on the players in those moments. When we get in good situations and we spoon the ball off the pitch, I can’t help them with that. That’s like, ‘Come on guys, it’s the Premier League now’…
“I’m really comfortable with myself as a coach, my standards, what I ask of the group and what I’m going to do over the next however many years that I decide to be a coach for.
“But I also embrace this difficult moment. That group downstairs need me again this week to help get them in a place where they’re ready to go and I’ll keep fighting for them and with them until I’m told not to.
“But I’ve no concerns around that. That doesn’t mean that I don’t think I’m going to get sacked as obviously with every result that comes, the chances of me losing my job will heighten as we all know, it’s nothing new.
“But it doesn’t concern me. The situation drives me to want to be better and drives me to to get more out of the group.”
Ait-Nouri’s first-half booking was already enough to see him suspended for next week’s trip to Leicester. Also booked after the whistle was Ipswich striker Liam Delap, already substituted, and his fifth card of the season will rule him out of the Newcastle game next week.
Ipswich have had three late winners go against them already this season, including a late double from Bournemouth in a 2-1 home defeat last week, which made it doubly sweet for the Tractor Boys to get one of their own.
“It’s fantastic of course,” Kieran McKenna said. “That’s football and these moments are moments to cherish for everyone involved in the club.
“We’ve had a few go against us this year. Not only last week, but Brentford was a tough one in the 97th minute (a 4-3 defeat in October), but we’ve had plenty go for us in the last few years as well, so there’s no violins for us as a football club.
“It’s about doing the right things as often as you can. We know if we do really well this year, do a lot of things right, we’ll be competitive in the games.
“We’re not going to blow teams out of the water so we’re competitive every week and it means games are going be decided on fine margins and we’ve got to keep working really hard on every tiny detail that can turn the tide in our favour and today we came out on top of it.”