Wolves' anger boils over as late Ipswich winner leaves Gary O'Neil on edge | first division

Full time, everywhere you looked there was total, ungovernable chaos. A mix of anger and apathy in the stands at another damaging defeat and fury on the field. Rayan Aït-Nouri had to be manhandled by Craig Dawson, an unused substitute, in the tunnel, where he received a second yellow card, six days after Mario Lemina was stripped of the captaincy for overheating at West Ham. Matheus Cunha, surely Wolves' savior if they somehow get out of this mess, was equally petulant and snatched the glasses of a member of Ipswich security staff during a confrontation.

Then a beleaguered Gary O'Neil uncovered some home truths in a lengthy dressing room investigation and then openly criticized the amateur defense that allowed Ipswich to walk away with three points. The outlook is increasingly bleak at Molineux, quickly becoming the unhappy place for Wolves fans.

At Ipswich, the atmosphere was different: Harry Clarke grabbed the ball at the final whistle and threw it into the sky, Ed Sheeran applauded from the directors' box. Three minutes into second-half stoppage time, Ipswich substitute Jack Taylor eluded Aït-Nouri to head in Jack Clarke's corner. Taylor took off his shirt and jumped over the billboards, followed closely by his teammates. A couple of Ipswich fans fell while trying to join the party. Ali Al-Hamadi snatched Taylor's blue shirt and presented it to the fans determined to savor just a second league victory of the season.

Presumably the Wolves hierarchy considered the possibility of this game not going as planned? There were early chants against chairman Jeff Shi and owners Fosun from Sir Jack Hayward's stand and a downbeat atmosphere inevitably soured the moment Conor Chaplin's punch hit Matt Doherty. That goal provided Ipswich fans with the perfect platform to revel in Wolves' misery. “They're going to fire you in the morning,” he sang at the end of the game.

Only the Wolves are desperate for O'Neil, who was handed a new four-year contract in August, to work. The reality is that the challenge his team faced after falling behind was gigantic. The Wolves had not come back from a deficit to win a game at Molineux since November 2023.

As the old saying goes, when it rains, it pours. With 71 minutes gone Wolves came to that comical own goal, Doherty being the unlucky one. Dara O'Shea, 10 meters from the Ipswich goal line, played a pass towards Liam Delap and a few seconds later the ball was in the back of the Wolves net.

Delap proved too powerful for Nelson Semedo and sent a cross towards Omari Hutchinson. The Ipswich winger evaded Sam Johnstone and shot at goal, which was stopped just by Doherty's left knee. They were off the hook…for now. Then Chaplin took aim from inside the area. Toti Gomes headed the ball, but his clearance deflected off Doherty and into the net. Gomes ended up doing a backflip. Six old gold Wolves shirts, plus Johnstone, stood perplexed inside the box.

O'Neil grimaced. Those in the stands did the same. It was nothing compared to the feeling three minutes and six seconds into added time. Wolves have conceded 20 goals from set pieces this season, the most in the league.

A lot of fans seemed conflicted between wanting Wolves to draw and attacking the decision makers. And then Cunha equalized after substitute Gonçalo Guedes slid him down the left wing. From that moment on, local support turned up the volume. Wolves squandered their chances of clinching victory with Ipswich reeling.

O'Neil is pragmatic about his future following Shi's public endorsement. “Either you find a way to be good enough or you get replaced, that goes for me, that goes for the players,” the Wolves boss said. “Change will occur if you constantly continue to fall below the level. I will continue fighting with and for the players. For every result that comes in, the chances of me losing my job will increase, it's nothing new.”

As well as Sheeran, there was another familiar face in Kieran McKenna's camp: Ole Gunnar Solskjær, a friend of the Ipswich manager from his time as Manchester United manager who is in England with his family for Christmas. Solskjær, of course, scored important goals from the bench.

“In some ways it was a pretty similar header to his at the far post in 1999, at the Camp Nou,” said McKenna, comparing Taylor's shot to Solskjær's 1999 Champions League winner. “If it had been in our stadium, he could have gone down the sideline.”