Boss O’neill confident about continued City progression
MICHAEL O’neill is convinced that Stoke City are in a better place on and off the pitch and will continue to improve as he marks his second year in charge.
It will be two years on Monday that O’neill was parachuted into a rescue mission at the bottom of the Championship.
Today they head to Luton Town, managed by his predecessor Nathan Jones, and sit sixth in a tightly-packed table with a smaller, younger squad on a much-reduced wage bill.
It is still a major work in progress but the manager is sure the ship is pointing in the right direction.
O’neill said: “We’ve had a huge overhaul in terms of the playing personnel and there’s been quite a number of changes within the staff as well.
“I think we’re a better team, clearly – we were obviously bottom of the league when I arrived. We’re also a younger team, we have players on much more realistic contracts which I think is a positive for the club.
“We’re building a team in a different way than the club tried to do when we first came down into the Championship. We’re signing different players in terms of when we’ve spent money when we’ve been able to spend money. I don’t think we’ve paid for anyone over 23.
“The club is in a different place than where it was two years ago and we have to continue down that road because ultimately I think we’ll continue to progress.
“If I left the club tomorrow I believe it’s in a better place than I found it and that’s the job of a manager, to continue to progress it.
“People will always look at results, which is natural, but for me it’s bigger than that. Of course we want to get out of this league but we’re in the same position as 12 or 14 other clubs in the Championship that all believe they’re capable of doing that. It’s a hugely competitive league.”
Thirty senior players have left Stoke since O’neill arrived with a mission to install a new identity.
But now he is in the ‘third chapter’ of his time in the saddle with that overriding goal of getting the club closer to the Premier League.
He said: “I only feel really now that we’re building the team more this year because the transition of the squad is always determined by the players you have in the building.
“It made it very difficult to move players out because of the wages and then that obviously slows down what you can do and affects what you can bring in. You’re limited by the rules, you can’t go out and spend on top then spend on top again.
“We’re cutting our cloth in a much different way prior to how we did prior to coming to the club.
“The first job for me was survival, the second part was to start to build a team and stabilise and I think we did that last season. We were a bit disappointed with the second half of the season.
“This season we’ve again brought a younger type of player to the club and the club, when we get through this season as well, will be in a stronger position again.
“The squad will continue to progress and the types of players we continue to bring to the club in terms of what we pay, are they an asset, what are their wages are all factors in decisions we have to make going forward.”