Connor O'Neill

Connor O'Neill knits together the daily news cycle of Merseyside football with longer-form context and player voices, using Liverpool and Everton as the backbone of his sports coverage for the Liverpool Echo and wider Reach titles. His work sits where match reports, transfer stories and opinion pieces meet, often framing club developments through the people and decisions behind them rather than just the scoreline. Across football and boxing, he moves between on-the-day reaction, tactical discussion and human-interest interviews that give his beat more depth than a straightforward match-by-match reporter.

Everton, Goodison Park and the Merseyside derby

Everton coverage is a constant thread in O'Neill’s output, ranging from transfer windows to the emotional and sporting weight of the club’s move away from Goodison Park. He has written at length on the “long goodbye” to Goodison, using pre-season fixtures and early league games there to reflect on what leaving the stadium means for supporters and for the club’s identity. Around derby games he contributes opinion-led pieces such as assessments of which Everton player is most important to a win over Liverpool, focusing on centre-forward Beto’s inconsistent season and potential influence on the fixture. His Everton work also includes regular use of managers’ and players’ quotes, for example teasing out Frank Lampard’s comments about James Garner’s fitness before facing West Ham United and Demarai Gray’s remarks on Neal Maupay’s arrival and changing standards within the squad. The tone of these articles is direct and grounded in the dressing room, linking tactical or selection questions to how the team is evolving rather than treating them as isolated soundbites.

Liverpool FC narratives and player focus

On the Liverpool side of his beat, O'Neill concentrates on the narratives around key players and how external voices interpret the state of the club.

Pieces built around Mohamed Salah and other senior figures often start from a high-profile comment - for instance Alan Shearer raising suspicions about the mood in the dressing room after a major Salah statement - and then unpack what that might mean for Liverpool’s dynamics and season. He also covers how managers elsewhere use Liverpool as a reference point, such as articles on a Paris Saint-Germain head coach dismissing a Champions League theory by pointing to Liverpool’s recent history, which place the club within a broader European context. International angles appear in his use of comments on Liverpool players representing their countries, tying together club form, injury concerns and national-team expectations in a way that keeps the focus on the individual’s trajectory rather than just fixtures.

Across these pieces he favours short, declarative sentences and a clear line between reported quotes and his own framing, making it easy to see where he is adding interpretation and where he is relaying what has been said.

Player interviews and feature work

Beyond straight news, O'Neill invests time in interviews and features that follow players over longer arcs, with a particular interest in career development and mentality. His exclusive conversation with Alex Greenwood tracks her journey to becoming a European champion, using biographical detail and reflections on pressure and opportunity to build a narrative that goes well beyond a single tournament or match.

Similar pieces use sit-down interviews to highlight how players process transfers, positional changes or injury setbacks, often pairing their quotes with concise scene-setting around recent performances. He also contributes to the Royal Blue Everton podcast, where he joins colleagues in extended discussion of Everton issues, giving his written work a complementary audio strand that reinforces his familiarity with the club’s history and current challenges.

These longer-form formats show a reporter comfortable moving from newsdesk pace to deeper storytelling, while still keeping the language plain and the structure tight.

Boxing and wider sports content

Although football is the core of his beat, O'Neill also maintains regular involvement in boxing and other televised sports through his roles within Reach’s central sports operation. Professional profiles describe him as having topic expertise across boxing, darts, snooker and football, and his career progression shows a shift from club-specific football writing into a multi-sport content creator and editor role. In that capacity his work is syndicated across group titles and external portals such as MSN UK and other national outlets, meaning his pieces on major events and personalities reach a broader audience than the local masthead alone.

Even in this centralised work he tends to keep the focus on clear storylines - fighters’ trajectories, tournament narratives, or the implications of major results - rather than on technical breakdowns, making his coverage accessible while still grounded in the competitive stakes.

Across these strands, O'Neill’s distinguishing feature is a consistent effort to connect results and quotes back to the longer stories of clubs and athletes, particularly around Everton and Liverpool. His beat mixes local detail with group-wide reach, and his writing style relies on straightforward, unadorned prose that leaves the emphasis on the subject rather than on the writer.