Since Nuno Espirito Santo arrived at Wolves, the club have enjoyed continued success, but the winter months were extremely challenging, Saiss admitted this week. However, after ending their winless run against Arsenal at the start of the month, the old gold have enjoyed a fruitful February, taking ten points from 12 available, and their Moroccan defender wants a positive result at Newcastle United on Saturday to end the month well.
On improving the form
“We were in a bad moment a few weeks ago and now we are improving. We’ve got a good result from the last four games, so we just want now to keep going in that way and to get more confidence to finish the season.
“It was the first time under Nuno we were in a bit of trouble, of course, because of the situation in the world and this season unfortunately we had a lot of injuries. It was totally new for us, so we had to find a solution in the team, even if it was hard, but it was good because at some point all the players had to be involved.
“We knew it would happen one day for sure because you can’t have only good moments in football, unfortunately it was now, so the most important was to really stay together and not be distracted by the things around us. It was hard but now we are happy to be in a good moment.”
On tightening up at the back
“When you are a defender, it’s always good to keep a clean sheet, because in that bad moment we conceded too many goals and it was new for us because normally one of our strengths was to be strong, then after we knew we could score at any moment.
“As a defender, I was really disappointed with all the goals we conceded, even if I scored two goals in this period, I prefer to not score and keep a clean sheet. Now, we are in a good moment to keep it that way and try to keep more clean sheets until the end of the season.”
🇲🇦 Saiss 🆚 Semedo 🇵🇹
— Wolves (@Wolves) February 19, 2021
🇪🇸 Adama 🆚 Owen 🇺🇸
A battle of the reactions 😅 pic.twitter.com/YBhLxCiEr3
On facing Newcastle
“It’s always tough to play against them, I think even more now because they are in a bit of trouble in terms of points in the table. They need points, so it will be really hard to go there, it will be tough, but I think we are in a good moment so we have good confidence.
“We want to go there to win the game and to be ready for the next three games before the international break. It’s an important game for us because we want to keep this positive series, so we worked a lot this week for this game, and now we have to go there and get the result.”
On having Jimenez back around
“Everyone was happy because what happened to Raul [Jimenez] was horrible, and after his injury, we were all afraid of the situation and what might happen to him in the next few days, weeks and months.
“Of course, we are really happy to have him training, even if it’s not our training sessions, but to see him working outside with the physical trainer is really good for him, for his family, and then for us, we’re really happy, we miss him a lot as a player, but especially as a person because he’s a really nice guy.”
On Neto stepping up
“I think he’s growing as a player, as a man. He has had to take more responsibility, and honestly he had no choice, because Raul was injured, we have Daniel [Podence] out, before Adama [Traore] was injured, but he was fit for all the games so took the responsibility up front and did really well.
“He can do more because he’s a talented player, and a nice guy, so I’m really happy for him because since he came here he’s worked a lot, day after day, it was a bit hard at the beginning because he didn’t play a lot, but he’s always staying positive, working in training, and that is the most important for him and for us.”
On an unpredictable season overall
“This season is completely different to the two before. Some results were incredible like Liverpool against Villa and Leicester against City, so it’s a strange season, everyone can beat everyone, so I think it’s the team who can adapt to the situation that are going to get more points.
“That’s why we want to be ready for each game, even if we have some problems with injuries, everyone has to be ready to keep this way of winning games and try to be as high as possible in the league. We’ll see at the end of the season what we’re going to do, but I’m very confident we’ll do good things.”
