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Wolverhampton Wanderers are currently looking for their next head coach after Vitor Pereira was removed from his post after no wins from the first ten matches of the Premier League season.

John Percy reports that Gary O’Neil, sacked by the club in the 2024/25 campaign, is now in advanced talks to take the job for a second time.

Gary O’Neil (Premier League)

23/24

24/25

Matches

38

16

Wins

13

2

Draws

7

3

Losses

18

11

Points

46

9

Points per game

1.21

0.56

Stats via Transfermarkt

The English tactician was sacked by Wolves after losing 11 of the opening 16 games of last season, but may now be brought in to save the Old Gold from their current position.

Instead of going back to O’Neil, who had the team in relegation form before he left last term, the club should look to another manager on their shortlist.

Wolves identify former Championship manager as target

The former Bournemouth boss is not the only head coach who has been linked with a move to Molineux since Pereira was moved on from his position.

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According to The Athletic, O’Neil is one of three managers in the frame to land the permanent job, alongside Middlesbrough boss Rob Edwards and Michael Carrick.

The report claims that all three of them are under consideration, as part of the club’s shortlist, but it did add that they would have to pay compensation to land Edwards.

Carrick is, therefore, the most interesting option on the list as an alternative to O’Neil, because he could be a dream option for Wolves for several reasons.

Why Wolves should appoint Carrick

The English boss, who was hailed as an “insanely talented coach” by former Boro player Lukas Engel, has stepped in to turn a poor start to a season around before.

He arrived at Boro in October 2022 after they won two of their first 11 Championship matches and led them to a fourth-place finish with 18 wins in 30 games, per Transfermarkt, which shows that he can inspire a group to turn their form around.

That suggests that he has a chance of being the source of inspiration that Wolves need to have any chance of avoiding relegation, with the team currently rock bottom of the division.

On top of that, Carrick, who was coy when asked about the Wolves vacancy on Match of the Day, is a proven Championship manager who can coach his side to play exciting football.

As much as supporters will not want to hear it at this stage of the season, it is worth thinking about how the next managerial appointment will fare if they take the team down, given the situation that they are going to inherit.

Michael Carrick’s two full seasons at Middlesbrough

Championship

23/24

24/25

League finish

8th

10th

xPTS (Expected league finish)

73 (5th)

71 (6th)

xG

69.5

67.4

xGA

55.0

56.4

xGD

+14.5

+11.3

Stats via FotMob

As you can see in the table above, Carrick’s coaching essentially delivered successive play-off level performances in the Championship, on top of actually finishing in the play-offs in his first season, but it was not rewarded by the output from his players.

The xGD numbers show that his Boro team consistently created more high-quality chances than the opposition, which tends to be a sign of a well-coached side.

Whereas, as shown in the post above from when he was linked to Norwich, O’Neil’s Bournemouth and Wolves teams, albeit at Premier League level, consistently conceded more chances than they created.

Therefore, Carrick, who is currently a free agent, would be a dream alternative to O’Neil because of the short and long-term impact that he could have.

نجح فيران توريس في قلب تأخر برشلونة أمام ريال بيتيس، خلال اللقاء الذي يجمع بين الفريقين ضمن منافسات الجولة السادسة عشر من الدوري الاسباني لكرة القدم.

ويجرى اللقاء بين الفريقين على ملعب لاكارتوخا، ويحتل برشلونة صدارة ترتيب الدوري الاسباني ب37 نقطة، ويحتل ريال بيتيس المركز الخامس بـ24 نقطة.

وافتتح ريال بيتيس التسجيل عن طريق أنتوني بعد ان أستغل خطأ من دفاع برشلونة في الدقيقة السادسة، ولم يكن في وضعية تسلل.

اقرأ أيضاً.. مارك جويهي يحسم رغبته بشأن وجهته القادمة بين بايرن ميونخ وقطبي إسبانيا

وبعد مرور خمس دقائق فقط، تعادل فيران توريس لصالح برشلونة في الدقيقة 11 من صناعة كوندي.

وأضاف فيران توريس الهدف الثاني له وللبلوجرانا في الدقيقة الثالثة عشر، ليتقدم برشلونة بهدفين لهدف، في ثنائية خلال 112 ثانية هي الأسرع لأي لاعب من برشلونة في مباراة بالدوري الإسباني منذ ثنائية أنسو فاتي خلال 103 ثوان ضد ليفانتي في فبراير 2020.

وكان هانز فليك مدرب برشلونة قد دخل اللقاء بتشكيل مكون من: جارسيا، بالدي، جيرارد مارتن، كوبارسي، كوندي، بيدري، جارسيا، يامال، باردجي، راشفورد، فيران توريس.

Cal Raleigh is re-writing the record books once again—this time for the Mariners.

Raleigh hit his 57th home run of the season off Astros pitcher Framber Valdez on Saturday, and now passes Mariners legend Ken Griffey Jr. for the franchise's single-season home run record.

Griffey Jr., a Hall of Famer and 13-time All-Star that played for Seattle from 1989-99 and 2009-10, hit 56 home runs in a season for the Mariners in both 1997 and 1998. Now, Raleigh has passed that mark and his 57 long balls are tied for the 17th-most in a single season by any player in MLB history.

Earlier this week, Raleigh tied Griffey Jr.'s record and also broke Mickey Mantle's record for the most home runs in a single season by a switch-hitter. Mantle hit 54 home runs in 1961 to set the record, and over 60 years later, Raleigh has broken that mark and become the second switch-hitter to surpass 50 home runs in a season.

Along with these records, Raleigh previously broke Salvador Perez's record for most home runs in a season by a catcher. Perez hit 48 home runs in 2021, and Raleigh surpassed that nearly a month ago.

The ICC has taken exception to the PCB having recorded on video the meeting between match referee Andy Pycroft and the Pakistan team management ahead of their Asia Cup game against UAE on September 17 in Dubai.In a strongly-worded email sent on Thursday, according to PTI, ICC CEO Sanjog Gupta informed the PCB that the use of a mobile phone to film the conversation was a breach of protocol in the Players and Match Officials Area (PMOA), where the meeting took place. Apart from Pycroft, the meeting was attended by Pakistan captain Salman Agha, head coach Mike Hesson, team manager Naveed Akram Cheema and media manager Naeem Gillani. The ICC general manager of cricket Wasim Khan was also present.When Gillani attempted to film the meeting, he was told that according to the anti-corruption code mobile phones were not allowed inside the PMOA. The PCB was insistent on filming the meeting, though, saying Pakistan would not play the match against UAE otherwise. A compromise was reached and Gillani was allowed to record the meeting without audio.Related

• Pakistan cancel pre-match press conference before India game

• Pycroft given just a few minutes' notice ahead of India-Pakistan handshake-gate

• PCB clears Pakistan to play UAE; says Pycroft apologised

In his email, Gupta called out such action as misconduct and said the PCB had committed “multiple violations” of the PMOA protocol. At the meeting, Pycroft told the Pakistan management that he was merely the messenger of the instruction that India captain Suryakumar Yadav would not shake hands with Agha, and not the issuer of the directive. While he expressed “regret over the miscommunication and misunderstanding” around the situation, shortly after the meeting the PCB issued a statement claiming Pycroft had “apologised to the manager and captain of the Pakistan cricket team”.The ICC disagreed with this version and Gupta reiterated in his email to the PCB that Pycroft had expressed regret for the miscommunication.The match between Pakistan and UAE on Wednesday eventually began after an hour’s delay, and only after the PCB agreed to a meeting between Pycroft and the team management ahead of the game to try and resolve issues around the handshake-gate incident that had occurred at the toss of the India-Pakistan game on Sunday. Until then, there had been a stalemate between the PCB, who wanted Pycroft removed from the remainder of the Asia Cup, and the ICC, who refused such a demand.The PCB’s claim was that Pycroft had violated the code of conduct and the MCC’s spirit of cricket in telling Agha not to shake hands with Suryakumar, an instruction he only received from the venue manager in Dubai minutes before the toss. The ICC said it had conducted an inquiry into the incident and cleared Pycroft’s handling of the situation.The PCB even threatened to pull the Pakistan team out of the Asia Cup, and for some time it looked like that could turn into reality when, on the day of their clash against UAE, the board told the players team to stay at the hotel beyond their scheduled departure time after learning that Pycroft was going to officiate the match. During calls between the ICC and PCB at this time, the meeting between Pycroft and the Pakistan team management was suggested, which eventually paved the way for the match to proceed.

West Indies are “not in the same level-playing field as other playing countries”, and an emergency meeting of Cricket West Indies (CWI), which included Brian Lara, Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards, Desmond Haynes, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and current head coach Daren Sammy, among others, has ended with a roadmap of sorts in place for a revival, but “it’s a long road, it’s not going to happen tomorrow”. One of the immediate decisions is, as Lloyd said, to ask the ICC for a “special dispensation” – extra money keeping in mind West Indies’ glorious past.While those in attendance at a press briefing at the end of the two-day meeting in Trinidad – CWI bigwigs as well as Lloyd and Lara – said that a lot of ideas were thrown about, it was not yet time to announce them since they had to go through an internal process before being put into action. There was trepidation too, since the downward spiral of West Indies cricket has been quick and seemingly without end: “Hope to see them come to fruition,” Lloyd said. “Sincerely hope this doesn’t come to some damp squib.””We have identified a list of about a hundred things that we have to improve, but probably among the top five: facilities at every level for our cricketers; practice pitches across the region; the quality of our domestic tournaments, there’s definitely a skills deficiency at various levels that don’t get highlighted till they reach international levels and then you see the glaring deficiencies vis-a-vis our international counterparts, which again is systemic,” Chris Dehring, the CWI chief executive said.Related

• West Indies 'hedging our bets' as fear over two-tier WTC grows

• Sammy on Pooran's retirement: 'More players will follow'

• Holder: 'I have a burning desire to make a change'

• Russell to retire from international cricket after Jamaica T20Is

“As the batting coach [Jimmy Adams] pointed out, it’s very difficult to change habits when you are getting somebody who has made so many runs at regional level but clearly has deficiencies when it comes to international level. It’s very difficult to change in a couple of weeks. There are issues concerning strength and conditioning, which again points back to facilities which are available to youngsters and emerging players and ‘A’ teams, etc.”Dehring said that, among other things, CWI planned to have “a proper high-performance centre established in the region, a prototype that will then be modelled and imitated across the region, in other countries, [and] academy systems to ensure that the West Indies way of playing cricket is both documented and taught from very early”.

Twenty-seven all out and the aftermath

The last time West Indies played Test cricket, at Sabina Park in Kingston against Australia, they were bowled out for 27, the second-lowest innings score in Test history and the lowest since 1955. The meeting was announced soon after that. Since then, West Indies have played ten white-ball games, winning two and losing eight.”It’s been that case for years, where we are not in the same level-playing field as other playing countries,” Lara said. “Back in the days when skill was the prominent factor, we excelled, we were the best team in the world. But the game has evolved, and technology and analytics, and we now have to see a new way of finding ourselves back to being very competitive.”I said not a level-playing field because a lot of the countries are far ahead in these sorts of areas. The skill factor of the game is still there, but not as prominent as it was in the past.”It’s a long road; it’s not going to happen tomorrow. It was not about the 27 runs. If it was 57 or 107, will we be feeling any better? I don’t think so. It was the fact that we’ve got something to address, and for us to get back on top, or to be a competitive nation in world cricket, we’ve got to address these situations and address them shortly, quickly, and hopefully we can reap the benefits in the years to come.”The challenges are “systemic”, director of cricket Miles Bascombe said, and that they were “across our cricket system”. The goal now, he said, was “identifying the challenges at every level of our production pipeline […] and how to put all of that together. To have a holistic solution and then we will engage all of the stakeholders necessary to help us along the way.”

Club vs country, the losing battle

It’s not new, the notion that modern-day West Indian cricketers, called mercenaries in the past, have prioritised franchise T20 leagues around the world, where they are in big demand, and the West Indies team has suffered as a result.If that is the case, what is the way forward?”West Indies cricket is still very important in the minds of all youngsters, male and female, and when looking at cricket as a career,” Lara said in response to a question. “I think you have to understand that in different eras and decades, there are different motivational factors. In the ’50s and early part of the ’60s, we were thinking about the independence – we can show our colonisers that we can play cricket, we can govern ourselves. In the ’70s and ’80s, I believe that under Sir Clive, it was all about trying to be the best in the world. After learning from previous decades.Andre Russell and Sunil Narine have primarily been in action in T20 leagues over the past many years•BCCI

“Presently, if I can fast forward, the game has now very much commercialised. The franchise system is definitely in the mind of every young person, and every parent as well. When you see what’s happening around the world with the IPL, the American cricket league [MLC] and much else. The motivational factors we have to tap into: what motivates youngsters today? It might not be just representing West Indies 365 days of the year. It might be playing in an IPL or a BBL or something else. We have to find out those interests and see where West Indies cricket can still benefit from the youngsters.”It’s unfortunate [that] a young man at the age of 29, like Nicholas Pooran, will call an end to his international career. Find out why these things are happening and how we can stem that sort of situation and we get the best players to play for West Indies. Australia, India and England and these countries benefit from wholeheartedness from their players, the passion that they have playing for their country. We have to get that to return to West Indies cricket.”The solution, Bascombe said, was that, “We will never be able to compete with franchise money, everybody acknowledges that. So it has to be pride. Pride in the performance and pride in representing the West Indies.”That, looking at the past many years, might be easier said that done.”People must realise that T20 is an exhibition and Test cricket is an examination. When you are getting offered the type of money that these guys are being offered, there’s only one way they’ll go. It’s a lot of money,” Lloyd said. “The point is we have to try and keep the guys that we have, teach them the right things, and hope that our cricket will still be in shape.”

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