Success Will Come

Gaffer's confidence in long term ambitions

Walter Zenga admits there may be the need for patience as Wolves continue to adapt to the many changes which have taken place in recent months – but that he wants success as soon as possible.

The Head Coach says he is confident that success will come and he will be able to help achieve the club’s long-term aim of promotion and then sustaining that improvement into the Premier League.

Zenga knows it will take plenty of hard work, but he is relishing the challenge.

“We’re human – sometimes we wake up in the morning with sadness or nerves,” he says.

“And my position is more exposed to these situations because my family is not here. And I wanted to be top of the ranking with 33 points!

“My dream is still the same – full stadium and bring the team in the position they deserve to stay, which is in the Premier League.

“We achieve this in three months? Wonderful. We achieve this at the end of the year? OK. We can do it next year? OK. But we arrive. I don’t know when, I cannot promise tomorrow, but we will arrive."

Zenga continued: “We arrive at the club, new owner, new coach, new everything

“Then new players. But it’s not important to just buy a good player – the most important thing is that the players play good together. And this isn’t simple.

“But we’re happy with what we’ve done until now. Sure we can regret the Burton goal, or the Wigan goal, and we were delighted if Nouha (Dicko) had scored against Norwich.

“But we’ve played for two months and I haven’t seen a team dominate us. And I’ve seen the team, except the last 15 minutes against Barnsley, fight to the last whistle.

“It’s not one defeat that creates problems for us, or a win that says we have arrived...it’s a long season. We have to arrive in May.

“And you never give up...because you never know how close you are to reaching your achievements. Never give up.

“Never say ‘it’s all wrong’. In two months we’ve given an idea, and we have to continue to do this.”

Zenga had a few days away last week, going home to see family, but admits he never switches off from Wolves, and is always thinking about the detail required to give the team the best chance of achieving results.

“Just an example – I record all the training sessions and on Tuesday I showed to the players what we did on Monday in one three-minute clip,” he explains.

“The next day we repeated that exercise – but without the mistakes.

“It’s something that, in my opinion, you cannot say to someone ‘you remember when you make this mistake?’. You tell the players, show the players, then make with the players...it’s the best option you can have.

"I'm obsessed about the details. It's hard to switch off.

“Even now I take some time to see my kids and my family – my wife was there and she was asking me ‘where are you?’. I say ‘what’?. She says ‘I know that you’re thinking about something different’. And it was true!

"In that moment I was thinking about how can I give help to players like Jed Wallace, George Saville, Paul Gladon and Ola John. My brain is all the time in work. But the coach job is an amazing life.

“It’s only two months I’m here. It’s like now I’m finishing my pre-season. Pre-season in Europe is 45 days. And you're always looking for something to help the team be better.

"That doesn't mean just to win the (next) game, it means that in the long term you build one big team.

"The famous movie, Jerry Maguire, 'help me help you' – it's true!"