Michael O’Neill’s popularity as the Stoke City head coach has dropped over the last week.
This is part of the Manager Approval Ratings series. This is where every week, we ask the fans whether they approve or disapprove of their manager. We then track the results over the weeks to see whether a manager has got more or less popular within their fanbase.
For the first time, we included a Don’t Know option within our poll. This is so fans who aren’t sure if they approve of their manager can accurately detail their thoughts to us. With this, it is expected that approval rates will contract, so massive approval rates will get smaller and terrible ones will get a bit better.
Last week in Week 1, Michael O’Neill received an approval rating of +92. This was after he was approved by 96% of Stoke City fans with 4% of fans disapproving of him. The Don’t Know option was not available in that week’s poll.
Week 2’s results are as follows with changes from Week 1 detailed in brackets.
Approve: 82% (-14)
Disapprove: 9% (+5)
Don’t Know: 9% (+9)
Net Approval Rating: +73 (-19)
As you can see, the popularity of Michael O’Neill has dropped a lot over the last week. The only good sign is that the bulk of the people who approved of him last week have simply moved to the Don’t Know column rather than disapproving of him. This is no surprise considering that Stoke lost 2-0 to Middlesbrough at the weekend. During the time this poll was open for responses, Stoke lost 3-0 to Wigan Athletic.
