Wolves were seconds from a first FA Cup final since 1960, but we pegged back in injury time, having been 2-0 up, and saw Watford overtake them to book a final appearance. However, once the dust settles, Nuno insists the club must learn from the heartache and come back even stronger than before.
On learning from semi-final loss
“Today is tough, sometimes the pain that you feel makes you grow, but we feel it as a group. We will stick together because it’s our identity, it’s a squad, we are relentless, we never give up and we will come again.
“Now is the moment we have to face, it’s a moment of sadness. Nothing that we can say or do now is going to change it, we have to stick together, knowing that it’s going to be hard, but let’s look at the future and say our present has a lot of things to go for
“We have to become a better team. It’s a good chance for us to become a better team, so we can reach and fight to compete in these moments, and these games, against tough opponents. We keep growing as a team and try to reach the semi-final again in the future, and try to win it. It’s the ambition we have, to improve ourselves.”
On a dramatic game
“It was an emotional game. We had it and it got away from us, so it’s a big disappointment for us, especially for the fans. It’s a sad moment, we cannot hide it. We did the first half very good, second half also good. We didn’t manage well, but we must look at it because we should manage well.
“We are suffering because we had it, we had it there and it got away from us. I honestly think we should have done better in the last minute of the game. We must try to understand why, but I’m very proud, very proud.”
On bouncing back
“We must do it better, specifically in the final minutes of the game, it required different management of the game, a different approach on each ball, because we are seconds away from achieving what we want. Let’s look at it and try to improve.
“We are disappointed. This is football, we must stand up again, we have things to fight for, but I’m very proud of the way we made it here. We had some tough ties which we were able to win and today we played good.”
On a memorable cup run
“It was a very tough competition. All the difficult ties that we had throughout the competition, we made ourselves proud to reach the semi-final. We are proud of the work that we’ve been doing, it’s a team that keeps on growing, keeps on improving and even in these moments we have to look at things and say that if we want to reach Wembley again.”
On the support
“I’m sad because of the fans. They were tremendous through the game, 34,000 people here, but now it’s a moment that we have to suffer together. Today we tell our supporters that we are thankful, tell them that we are sad because they will not go back to Wolverhampton the way they were seconds away from doing.
“We tell them that we need their support to keep on going. The togetherness between the fans and the team is the best thing that can happen in the club and what we have now is very valuable.”
