Wolves suffered for more VAR disappointment in the first-half and suffered by Juan Mata made the most of a defensive mistake to put United through. Ruddy himself had impressed between the sticks, but he, like his team mates, sees the journey end early in this year’s FA Cup.
On the disappointment of defeat
“Disappointed, ultimately. I thought, although we didn’t play to our best, I thought we did enough to certainly take it to extra time, or even win the tie, so there’s a general feeling of disappointment in there today because it was a good opportunity for us.
“We know how dangerous we can be on the break and, with what we’ve got up front, we’re always going to create chances. I think tonight was more about weathering storms at certain times, being compact and disciplined in our shape, and I thought we did that for the majority of the game.
“I think the goal was literally the only time they probably had a bit of luck, or a break, or a little lapse in concentration from us, and we got punished for it, and that’s going to happen.”
On VAR frustrations
“What can you say? Listen, I’m not a fan of VAR, never have been, never wanted it in. It’s here, but I just think when you bring something like VAR in, to then change a rule like the handball rule, and make it so minute, is asking for trouble.
“We’re seeing time and time again this season that it is costing teams for the smallest of things, we’ve had it two or three times now with this rule alone. So, yeah, frustrated, but we go on, we know what it’s about, but we have to put this to bed and make sure we continue in the league and build some momentum now going forward.”
On bouncing back
“We have to show character, we have to bounce back from this. Like I said, we have to put this to bed tomorrow, when we come in we’ll put it to bed, move on, and, like you said, we’ve got a big game on Saturday.
“We’ll look to take the positives from today and from the rest of the season, and, again, build that momentum against Southampton team that’s had a bit of resurgence recently.”
