Matheus Nunes became the latest addition to Lage’s squad this week, following Nathan Collins and Goncalo Guedes through the door, and with a number of their new teammates returning to fitness, Wolves’ squad is looking impressive. They head to the capital tomorrow, for a clash with Tottenham Hotspur, and in his pre-match press conference, Lage spoke of Nunes, as well as the departing Morgan Gibbs-White, and the squad now in place at Molineux.
On having strength in depth
“Last season we had a few players in each position and started the season with an ambition to create a different squad. I want competition in every position, a squad everyone dreams of. If you look at the squad which went to Spain and the squad training today, it’s completely different, and competitive, that’s the most important thing.
“The second thing is about five subs, and what I said to the players, football will be different after this. Now, one more thing I want in the profile of a player is a record off the bench. The five subs make a big impact on the game, so I want to understand the record he has from the bench, if he impacts a game and can give goals and assists.
“Against Leeds, we were playing very well, but when I looked to the side, I saw Jesse [Marsch] doing subs to change the game and they scored. That’s what I want from my team. I don’t promise anyone that they will play, what I promise is that they are very important to me, and after it’s my decision. I talked with everyone, and I want us to feel every time a good energy in everyone. They understand what I want, I know it’s hard, but the players need to understand it’s what I want from my team every time, to choose the best strategy for a game.”
💬 “I wanted to know what the mister expects from me, and it’s good to know he has a lot of expectations on me, that he believes in me.
— Wolves (@Wolves) August 18, 2022
"That gives me the will to work hard and prove that he’s right." pic.twitter.com/N5dNCvz1if
On what Nunes can bring
“He can be very important for us. We know what he did, especially in the last two years, in Sporting. He can be an important player for us – that’s the most important thing, and then, it’s a different challenge. The challenge was for him to come and to compete in the Premier League. The Premier League is a hard league to play.
“We come from a game against Fulham and now we’re going to play against Tottenham. Conte has already won one Champions League and we’re going to play against top players, and that’s the challenge every week. He can be important for us, it can be good for him to play in the Premier League and it’s another time when a big player has arrived in the Premier League.”
On Gibbs-White’s departure
“Morgan, I enjoyed working with him, it was a big pleasure. The challenge was for him to be, and I believe with us he would have been, a top player, and the same way I believe he’ll go to Nottingham, with a coach he worked with at Swansea and the national team, and can have a big impact on the Premier League.
“All these guys here, they need to feel they are very important for me in every moment, like they were last season. The most important thing is they feel they’re very important for the match. We can make five subs to give more energy, change the system, give a new dynamic to try to change the score or protect the score.”
On the availability of his players
“All the players are coming, this is a good sign, and now it’s the hard part of the preparation. Apart from Chiquinho, we have three groups to prepare, and we need to take care with. The first group is the group that started the season with us. They know our dynamics, the way we’re training. The other group is the players like Raul, Semedo, Adama and Joao who have started training but they did injure in the pre-season, so we need to take care of these players because they have four weeks of holidays and some of them didn’t do the pre-season and now they start to work.
“It’s a different kind of work and we need time for them to recover their injuries and time for them to be fit. Now we need to arrange time for them to do a pre-season while continuing to play. And then, we have the other group is players like Goncalo and Matheus. They are coming, they start the pre-season in the other teams and now they need to understand everything; our dynamics, our routines, they need to know their teammates, they need to know the city, they need to choose houses, so now it’s time to link everything together.
“That’s why I said in the last press conference to ask for patience and time and here I am saying the same thing. We need patience and time to link everyone together and for everyone to understand our dynamic, so from these three groups, we can create one solid group and have time to work with the team and for the team to understand the way we want to play.”
