Stoke City: Can Michael O’Neill stop a car-crash becoming a train-wreck?

On May 11th 1998 Stoke City hired a certain Brian Little. Many were surprised. He was a managerial heavyweight who could easily have walked into a far better job, probably in the top flight. In comparison, third-tier Stoke were perceived as a sleeping giant who were extraordinarily lucky to have him.

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By all accounts Little led a brilliant early run, and even by Christmas Stoke were still favourites for promotion. However, somehow the wheels came off the bandwagon, Little was soon gone, and Stoke slumped to 8th.

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There have been many false dawns at Stoke – Nathan Jones being the most recent, before he crashed and burned so spectacularly last autumn, despite his passionate promises & chest thumping. There have been so many false dawns of late that Stoke fans are almost out of that precious commodity: belief.

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Michael O’Neill is Stoke’s latest talisman. His job last season was simply to keep Stoke up. The fact that he could have actually achieved that solely with the points his team made since his accession last November sounds pretty remarkable.

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But all things being equal, a decent new manager taking over a financially stable club with a decent set of players should not have had to struggle too hard to keep a side like Stoke up. As was generally perceived, O’Neill clearly had a far deeper malaise to deal with at the bet365, and it took its toll on the team, results,… and on him.

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Not helped by his decision to do two jobs – the Northern Ireland job could have resulted in him taking a side to the Euros – O’Neill’s bandwagon occasionally looked like hitting the buffers. Performances were erratic, results sporadic, and those supposedly decent Stoke players continued to be unpredictable. O’Neill clearly had to dig deeper – this was never going to be a breeze, but still…! However, if Stoke went down, O’Neill’s 36-year footballing career might have gone with it.

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With no big signings in the January transfer window, the boss instead put in long hours with the existing squad. At times he looked exhausted, at times the job looked like it was aging the 51 year old.

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He was no longer managing an international side with only a dozen games a season. Now, he really was managing a side playing cold wet windy Wednesday nights in Stoke, and the games came thick and fast – 23 in his first 4 months.

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Slowly Stoke ground out results, a step forward here, a step backwards there. But just when it was felt that Stoke might have hit their stride, climbing away from relegation with a 5-1 victory against Hull, the lockdown started.

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As it was pointed out to him, his experience as an international manager – so used to irregular game schedules – should work in Stoke’s favour when play resumed. Instead, Stoke slumped badly post lockdown (0-2 to Boro, 0-3 to Wigan), and the sight of O’Neill after finally securing a crucial 4-0 victory in the 6-pointer with Barnsley was wholly alarming. He looked like he hadn’t slept for days!

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The win was followed by the 0-5 humiliation by Leeds. But his stamina ultimately paid off, and his Stoke side pulled through to safety with excellent wins against Brentford (1-0) and at Forest (4-1) , with a flattering final position of 15th, one better than the previous season (albeit aided by Wigan’s 12 point demise).

(O’Neill & the Forest manager after the 4-1 win)

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Now O’Neill has had the shortest of breaks, and off we go again with 50+ games in only 8 months, to be squeezed in between now and May.

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Ahead of him in the daunting task of a full season as manager of an English football side – something he’s never attempted before.

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At Brechin he managed 41 games in 2007-08. (It would have been more if he hadn’t fielded 2 ineligible players, resulting in City being thrown out of the Scottish Cup!)

At Shamrock he managed 49 games in 2010. (They won the Irish League, got knocked out of the Europa by Juventus, and lost the Cup Final on a penalty shoot out, missing all 4 spot-kicks!)

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All indications are that he will do well. In fact the irony could be that if he does too well (say, being in a promotion spot before Christmas) then there won’t be a Premier League side who won’t hire him.

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But there is little chance of him emulating Brian Little’s 8 wins in 9 games from the start of the 1998-99 season, and probably just as well.

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His main job will be to finally kill the spectre that has haunted Stoke City since 2017: that losing mentality, that head-dropping malaise that has polluted the club.

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If he can do that, the train-wreck can be avoided, and for Stoke City it will mean that the sky’s the limit!