After last weekend’s fixture with Liverpool was postponed following the death of Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Wolves return to action on Saturday lunchtime and with the addition of Diego Costa to his squad, the head coach believes his players have had a positive week of training as they attempt to cause an upset.
On paying tribute to Queen Elizabeth II
“I think all games around the UK will do a good job to respect and make a good tribute to the Queen. The best tribute we can do is the respect the Queen had during her life. Not just here, but the respect she had from everyone around the world.
“I am living in the UK, but I am 46 and have lived in the UK for five years. I know the culture she had in the UK, but I also know the respect she had, especially in my country.”
On bringing Diego Costa to Wolves
“When I first came to Wolves, one of my first calls was to Joao Felix to ask about Diego Costa. Joao said good things about him, about his personality and the way he continued to play. In that moment he wanted to go back to his country to play, but after what happened with Sasa, I noticed Diego was available and it was a time to talk with him and convince him to come to us.
“We are very happy with him. We know he needs time to be ready to compete at this level. I can use what he said, he said it is his destiny [to return to Premier League]. 15 months ago, when I think about him, we didn’t have any chance [of signing him] because he was in a different idea of his career, now he said to me what happened is because it is meant to be.
“I hope he is now ready to compete at this level and I believe we can bring the old Diego Costa to us, because that’s what we need, we need a reference in the box, we need one guy to compete with Raul, and Diego has that profile and he has a different profile to Raul. We have one more day. Let’s see if he can be available.”
On Costa adding aggression to the squad
“That’s a good point. If you want to press and be more aggressive, sometimes you cannot be too nice. We were talking about that last season with how we pressed sometimes and it became too easy for the other team to come out of our pressure because we were not aggressive.
“Not aggressive to kick the opponent, but aggressive to be close. You need to be aggressive in the duels and he [Costa] said that to me: ‘I know you ask about my profile, my personality, I am one of the best guys outside the pitch, but inside the pitch, I am very hard.’
“That is the kind of man I want also with the quality that he has. It was a simple talk and it was very easy to convince him to join us.”
On having extra time to train
“It was [very useful]. We were asking about time, especially when we recovered from those three games in a row. Matheus [Nunes], Guedes and some of the new players when they arrived, they were training just two days with us and they played three games in a week.
“It was a good time to work, especially for ourselves because it was a new system, especially the dynamics, the way we work, the way we want to attack, the way we want to defend, and also a little bit more time to have to recover from that period, work together and understand each other better.
“It was very good in one way, but we were ready to play against Liverpool, but more important things happened than football and we have to respect that. We had a good period to work and a good period to prepare the game.”
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— Wolves (@Wolves) September 16, 2022
On last season’s Molineux loss to City
“I wasn’t there that night because I was with Covid. I was watching the game here at the training ground and my assistants were at the stadium. I know it’s not easy for us to see where the threat comes from, but this is the team we need to look at because they work like a collective.
“Sometimes the threat comes from Ederson because he just makes a long pass and create a situation to score. They work as a team, they change the first 11 and the dynamic is still there, in the game they change the positions and the dynamic is still there, now with the new striker we can see a big difference but the dynamic is still there.”
On preparing for Erling Haaland
“We can still see the same things and it was important for Man City, especially in this modern football, because Pep Guardiola was one of the first managers who played with a false nine.
“Now they have a striker, we can see him in the box, we can see the goals that he’s scored, we see him between the lines of the defenders, outside of the strikers, first post, second post, he’s scoring goals from those situations, so those are the things we also need to pay attention to.
“We know how they create chances, we know what kind of spaces, we know what kind of runs they want to find in our box, and now they have a striker like him, they can score a goal like he scored two nights ago.”
