- Gary O’Neil & Rob Edwards were shortlisted by Middlesbrough after Wilder was fired.
- Wilder left Boro in 22nd place in the second tier following Saturday’s 1-0 loss at Coventry.
- Owner of Boro, Steve Gibson, also has admiration for Rob Edwards.
After Chris Wilder was fired, Middlesbrough’s shortlist is led by Gary O’Neil &Rob Edwards. Wilder left Boro in 22nd place in the second tier following Saturday’s 1-0 loss at Coventry, the club’s only victory in 11 Championship outings.
Former Boro midfielder O’Neil has led promoted Bournemouth well since taking over when Scott Parker was fired, but much will rely on if the Premier League team decides to keep him in that position for an extended period of time.
Owner of Boro, Steve Gibson, also has admiration for Rob Edwards. The highly rated former Forest Green Rovers manager is available and is anticipated to be questioned by Gibson and Kieran Scott, the head of football, this week following his recent, somewhat harsh dismissal by Watford after only 10 games at Vicarage Road.
Prior to this Saturday’s match at Millwall, Boro’s management team hopes to have a successor in place. Wednesday’s game against Birmingham will be under the direction of Leo Percovich, who will be joined in the dugout by fellow coaches Lee Cattermole, Mark Tinkler, and Craig Liddle.
Between 2007 and 2011, O’Neil appeared in more than 100 league games for Boro. He has been a member of Bournemouth’s coaching staff for the past 18 months. Before his disastrous tenure at Watford, Edwards, who is 39 like O’Neil, led Forest Green to promotion from League Two in April.
Although Wilder managed Boro for 11 months, he has never particularly enjoyed working with football directors and did not appear totally content to hand over some of his authority to Scott and the club’s chief executive, Neil Bausor.
After Sean Dyche was fired last spring, a manager who has recently been linked with Bournemouth appeared to quietly court Burnley’s attention. Vincent Kompany filled the vacancy, although the manager rarely appeared happy at the Riverside.
Wilder put himself on a collision course with the owner by repeatedly making it apparent he did not think his team was good enough to undertake the automatic promotion campaign Gibson desired. As a result, Monday’s breakup had come to be seen as increasingly imminent.
After failing to get promotion under two other more conventional “old-school” managers, Wilder and Neil Warnock, it looks that Gibson will hire a “dirt on the boots” tracksuit coach who is content to leave hiring in large part to Scott.
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