Having impressed during his debut season in the Wolves first-team, academy graduate Hugo Bueno is hoping he can push on to become a ‘key’ player for the Old Gold in the 2023/24 Premier League campaign.
The emergence of the Spanish left-back was one of the positive outcomes from a season which saw Wolves fight against relegation until the final few weeks, as he overcame the challenge of experienced head Jonny and fellow youngster Rayan Ait-Nouri to pin down the position. But despite Toti also showing he was also a worthy contender for the starting spot, Bueno is confident he’ll come back stronger following an off-season break.
On his first senior season at Wolves
“It’s been amazing, to be honest. I really enjoyed every minute I played. But obviously, this season has been really hard for all of the team, since the beginning.
“We didn’t start well and there were little bits of pressure as well, but personally, I enjoy playing even with the pressure, so I’m really happy for this season and I can’t wait for the next one.
“At the beginning of the season I didn’t really play a lot, but with the change of the manager [Bruno Lage] and with Steve Davis and James Collins coming in, they knew me from before and I knew I could have my chance there.
“When they gave it to me, I understood that I had to take it and that’s what I did. I tried to do the best I could and since then, I’ve been able to play loads of games, so I was really happy to have had that chance.”
On his debut at Selhurst Park
“I wasn’t meant to start that game, but something happened to Rayan [Ait-Nouri] and they only told me I would be playing in pre-match. It was quite late, so I didn’t have chance to think about it a lot.
“I just told my dad and my close family that I was going to start, and from that moment, I just tried to focus on what I had to do and put my everything into the game.
“Although we didn’t win that game, personally, I think I played well, but I was confident since the beginning. I wasn’t nervous or anything going into that game.”
On impressing Lopetegui
“Of course, when a new manager comes in, every single player – no matter who you are – has something to prove. You’ve got to gain his confidence and try to get minutes so you can impress. We also have a really good squad and a really big squad, so it was not going to be easy to be in one of the starting spots.
“But I love to prove myself. I’m very competitive as well, so I love to have competition against me, but I also worked very hard every day for the opportunity. When the new manager came in, I had some minutes with him straight away, so I knew that was going to be good and I was just hoping it would stay like that.
“I knew about him before and saw him when he was at Real Madrid and also with the national team, so I knew he was a top manager, so it was really exciting for me when the news came out about him coming here.
“I was excited because I knew he was a good manager, the fact he was Spanish didn’t matter to me, because I would have worked hard to prove myself to any manager. But it’s been amazing working with him and hopefully we can stay like this.”
The Hugo Bueno cross 💫
— Wolves (@Wolves) October 20, 2022
The @AdamaTrd37 header 🎯
A pitchside angle of Adama’s opener at Palace. pic.twitter.com/f9E2tnCjaj
On always feeling confident on surviving relegation
“Definitely. That was one of the things I thought, even when we were bottom. I knew we were going to get out of the relegation zone soon because you just had to look at the players we had and the quality of the training sessions.
“Obviously, things weren’t going well, but I knew the quality was there. We just had to progress, keep working and the results would come, and that’s what we did.
“But it was also the energy that we needed because I remember we had the quality, but we didn’t have the motivation inside of us. But since the new manager and the new players came in, we had the feeling that we could get out of there easily.
“We just had to work hard and make sure that everyone was ready to play. To be honest, the team was incredible in so many of the matches, so we’re really happy as a team to have got out of the relegation zone.”
On aiming for more in 2023/24
“I still have to remind myself that this was my first season as a senior Wolves player, and it was an introduction to the Premier League. I think I did really well, but hopefully with more experience inside of me I can now put more good performances and become one of the key players for next season.
“I think I can be one of them, but I also know the difficulty of that and how hard I’m going to have to work to achieve that. I’m just going to give my best to try to be one of the most important players next season.”
