Sam Johnstone believes the Wolves players have reacted well to Rob Edwards’ message in training, during what has been a first full week with the squad for the head coach.
Edwards’ first Wolves game on Saturday came one day after his entire squad returned from international duty, but with a full week under their belts now, their goalkeeper is starting to notice a difference.
Speaking ahead of Sunday’s trip to Aston Villa – one of his former clubs – Johnstone said the group have put the work in this week, following a fresh approach from Edwards, and says a positive result at Villa Park could turn the momentum of the season their way.
On a week with the full squad
“Last week was a bit different with the internationals coming back at different times of the week. This week's been the first that the manager has had the whole squad working together every day. He'll be happy with that, and we're happy with that.
“Saturday was a difficult game, but some players only came back on the Thursday, Friday, and the manager hadn’t had time with us yet. He's obviously doing things that are very different to what we've been doing before.
“He's having to put a lot of things right that was probably swept under the carpet before. It's going to take time for them things to change, but we all know that we haven't got a lot of time, so we need to take it on board quickly and try to change it as soon as possible.”
On the lads reacting well
“Everybody knows the manager’s really positive, a really, really good guy. He's getting his message across in the right way and with good training sessions. Hopefully things are picked up quickly, and we can progress.
“We’re working everything now. We're working defensively, working where we need to be, what we have to do, throughout the whole pitch. We might be defending the edge of our box, but the manager expects those up front to still be doing a job. It's all 11 of us doing a job defensively and attacking. It's obvious what we need to work on. It's doing it every day, working hard, and then things, hopefully, should turn.”
On the positives against Palace
“You have to take positives out of it. It is difficult sometimes, because people look at the result, but until the first goal it was anyone's game, and unfortunately for the first goal it bounced to them and it goes in, and things turn a little bit. But we created some chances where we could have score. We could have made it 2-1 and then it's probably a different game on 75 minutes.
“We need to be solid and difficult, then we've got good players to try and win us a game. The way I look at things is doing it back to front. If you're solid and try to stay in games as long as possible, you're always going to get chances to try and win the game. That has to start straight away, and we go from there.”
On a West Midlands clash
“Another previous club on Sunday. Every game's difficult, but hopefully we take the positives out of last week. We've been together this week and it's a game of football and anything can happen on the day.
“I played in this game the other way around, and last year at Villa, and there's a great atmosphere. It'll be a good game, and hopefully we come out on top. As soon as you get that one win, hopefully sooner rather than later, we can take that into training, and into the next games. We just need that to go our way to start picking points up.”
