Exclusive: Following Liam Manning’s dismissal, Norwich City approaches Gary O’Neil
At Carrow Road, the 2025–26 Championship season has gotten off to an unexpected start. With just two victories and nine points after 15 games, Norwich City is now ranked 23rd in the division. Liam Manning was dismissed of his duties shortly after the full-time whistle blew as Leicester City handed them their tenth loss of the season on Saturday.
Gary O’Neil has been contacted by Norwich City to express interest in taking over as manager of the Canaries, Football League World has exclusively learnt. After Vitor Pereira’s recent departure, the 42-year-old was reportedly in talks to return to Molineux as Wolves’ new manager. He has subsequently pulled out of the race, though, acknowledging on Sky Sports that “it didn’t feel like the right time or right fit” for Wolves’ match against Chelsea on Saturday night.
However, he may have different feelings about Norwich City, a team he is familiar with. In fact, O’Neil made over 50 appearances for the Canaries between 2014 and 2016. He contributed to the team’s promotion to the Premier League during the 2014–15 campaign, which ended with Norwich defeating Middlesbrough at Wembley Stadium in the Championship play-off final. Even though O’Neil is only 42 years old and still very much in the early stages of his coaching career, he has already made a name for himself as a very potential manager.
In the summer of 2022, O’Neil was given his first full-time managerial position by Bournemouth, and he and his Cherries team achieved what many newly promoted Championship teams fail to do in their first Premier League season: survive. The club’s quick rise through the top tier of English football began with a 15th-place finish in the 2022–2023 season. The team went on to finish 12th and ninth in the following two seasons. O’Neil took over as Wolves’ manager after the 22/23 season, and he led the team to a solid 14th-place finish, 20 points ahead of Luton Town, who finished in 18th place with 26 points.
Despite being fired by the club in December of last year while the squad was in the relegation zone, he left with his reputation as one of the most talented young English coaches still intact because of the current situation Wolves are in. Therefore, getting him to descend not only into the Championship but to the foot of it as it is for Norwich would undoubtedly have to be considered as a huge coup for the Canaries, considering that he has only managed at the Premier League level thus far in his coaching career.
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