Gary O’Neil believes the Wolves players deserve a lot of credit to have put themselves just three points behind a West Ham United side sat in seventh place in the Premier League table ahead of the teams facing off at Molineux this weekend.
Despite picking up just a point from their last two Premier League outings, Wolves still have an outside chance of achieving European qualification for the first time in five years with eight games of their season remaining, and with Matheus Cunha having come through 20 minutes away at Burnley in midweek following his hamstring injury, O’Neil is determined for his team to end the campaign on a high.
On injuries to his squad
“Channy [Hwang] and Daws both trained today, so we’ll see how they come out of that. It was their first main session after doing a couple of smaller ones, so they’ll be reviewed as to whether they’ll be part of the matchday squad tomorrow.
“Bellegarde is still not available but is doing better and Cunha is still in a good spot after his appearance the other night, no other issues and is feeling good so we can use him a bit more.”
Great to see you back out there, Matheus 🙌 pic.twitter.com/XC0uB76qPl
— Wolves (@Wolves) April 2, 2024
On not suffering the same problems next season
“I could have rotated the squad more earlier in the season, but we might not have been on 42 points. I could have taken Pedro [Neto] off on the hour in every game to look after him and we might have been on 32 now, but you don’t know. There are loads of ways we could have done it differently, but at the time we felt this was the best way to give us the chance of being successful.
“I do think it’s important to highlight that we’ve been unfortunate in that all our injuries have been in the same part of the pitch, which would have been extreme for any squad to deal with. But there will be a pot available in the summer and we can spread that round a squad of 25 or a squad of 19, but the more players you have the lower the quality of the individuals will be.
“There will be decisions to be made, but there’s still eight games to go and if I can do a good job and keep pushing the squad up the league then that will help us in the summer with what’s available to us. We have a real focus on this season, but trying to guard against this situation again next season is important to me. We all have to learn from what has happened and make sure we’re better for it next year.”
On Ait-Nouri’s recent performances
“Hopefully we can see more of the same from him because he’s obviously very talented, physically good, quick, and the tricky thing with Rayan is the option to move him into different positions is there because of his ability, but how well he was doing in his own position is one that you’d ideally like to leave him in his own position and let him get on with doing that one well.
“But since we’ve moved him, he’s continued to do well, continued to cause problems and he can definitely play across the front three now, as we’ve seen, so he will be key for us tomorrow to try to be creative and create some chances, and we’ll try to get him on the ball as much as possible.”
On the differences between Wolves and West Ham
“Wolves and West Ham are in different places at the moment – West Ham are further along in their progression as a club. We’ve had that not so long ago, where everything was moving forwards and the club was climbing up from the Championship and into European football, a fantastic journey which the fans will remember for a long time.
“We’ve recently had to transition away from that and start a new journey, whereas West Ham are two or three years into theirs. It’s different, but the fact that there’s only three points between us as we’re about to play them at home shows how well the boys have done this year because West Ham are in a different place to us right now in terms of transfer fees and players available to them, so the fact we’re around them and competing with them is huge credit to our group.
“West Ham are in Europe again, quarter-final stage, they won a European trophy last season and have another really good chance of securing European football against this year, so I don’t understand the criticism David receives – he’s doing a fantastic job.
On possibility of reaching Europe
“It would be massive. There’s been an awful lot of hard work to get us into this position from everybody and we’re still right there with eight games to go. We’re still in with a shout but it will take a lot of hard work from now until the end to get us there, but we’re really pleased with the position we find ourselves in.
“It’s a home game after two tough away games this week and we’ve done very well at home, but West Ham will be a tough test. They’ve got a lot of their key players back now having gone through a tough spell, so it will be a test, but one we’re looking forwards to. The players worked really hard for their point away from home the other day, and then to be able to add three at home will make it a good week for us.”
Podence scored the winner the last time we faced West Ham at Molineux 👐#WOLWHU | @MNEGlobal pic.twitter.com/wY7qxQEg97
— Wolves (@Wolves) April 5, 2024
On the players taking credit
“The majority of the work that goes on once you’ve crossed the white line is down to the lads, so they deserve the credit. They’ve surpassed everyone’s expectations other than their own because they expect to be where they are and expect to push towards the top of the table and there’s still the expectations in the group despite the situations that we’ve faced, and it’s up to me to guide them and facilitate what they need and try to push them in the right direction.
“They’ve had an awful lot of praise from me and I want to be able to give them the most praise come 19th May when we’ve secured a really successful Premier League season and a finish high up in the Premier League. They’ve worked extremely hard but we’re still eight games out so nothing has been achieved and nothing has been finalised yet, so we need to make sure we finish the job.”
On Wolves being an attractive proposition for new players
“The main thing you’re judged on as a manager is points on the board, but I would like to think a lot of the players are in a better spot now than they were, whether that’s their value to the football club or whether it’s the value of what they are producing each weekend.
“Hopefully players that we will look to recruit in the summer will look at Wolves and how we’ve played this year and some of the performances we’ve put in, the style of football we’ve played, and think it’s a good destination for them.
“I know a lot of the boys have really enjoyed their work, and a fair few of them are probably in the form of their lives this year – Rayan, Joao [Gomes], Mario [Lemina]’s had a fantastic season, Channy up until the injury, Pedro, Cunha, Toti, lots of people have had fantastic seasons and we needed to get the most out of everyone and so far we have. Hopefully that provides us with a group of players that when we try to recruit, the new ones would like to be part of that.”
