Skipper Danny Batth is confident the few days the squad enjoyed together in Newcastle has helped the new signings settle in as Wolves prepare for the usual long and testing Championship winter!
Wolves won at Newcastle in the Sky Bet Championship, then lost in the EFL Cup three days later, but the time away in the North East helped strengthen team spirit ahead of three more crucial games against Brentford tomorrow, at Wigan on Tuesday, and then home to Norwich on Saturday week.
“Games are coming thick and fast – that is the Championship,” said Batth, who yesterday put pen to paper on a new four-year contract.
“The new boys are finding out how relentless it can be.
“I think the time in Newcastle was beneficial for everyone in getting to know each other.
“There are a lot of new players and even simple things like eating dinner together or talking to players you haven’t had chance to is good.
“It was good to learn more about each other as players and individuals. That can helps us on the pitch to try and get good performances and results.
“The new lads are good, they are learning English well and there are some funny characters in there.
“Prince’s initiation song was unbelievable – I wish people could have seen it.
“Look at how Saiss did coming in for his first game since May, he was brilliant.
“We are hoping for more of that and that the new lads are going to come and improve the team.
“The new boys have bought into what Wolves stands for.
“They have seen the passion of the fans and how much they get behind the team and hopefully are being made to feel a part of what we are doing.”
There was certainly a sense of togetherness in evidence at St James’ Park for the league match last Saturday,
Wolves produced an excellent display to defeat the promotion favourites, coming just a few days after such a disappointing late collapse against Barnsley.
And the team will need more of that spirit against an in-form Brentford tomorrow at Molineux (3pm).
“The Barnsley and Newcastle results showed just what a division this is,” said Batth.
“We had a mad 15 minutes against Barnsley, there was no game management and everything went out of the window.
“We were in the next day analysing the game and hopefully that is a lesson for us which has come early in the season and we can learn from it.
“Tuesday nights have been difficult at Wolves so far and teams have come to sit back and wait for us to try and break them down and hit us on the counter.
“We have to come up with a strategy to counter-act that.
“Then we went to Newcastle which was a completely different game.
“The onus was on Newcastle to come at us but we stayed solid and then got the first goal.
“We rode our luck a bit and Kemes made some great saves but generally we were very solid and came away deserved winners.
“The tactical side of things is very important.
“Fans get very into the performance of the team and that comes off the spine of the team and it is important we get that right.
“We do a lot of video analysis during the week and a lot of walk-through shape on the pitch and it is important we learn from that.
“Over the course of the season we want to turn that into results and points.”
