Collins | 'Our football wasn’t good enough'

James Collins was left disappointed by an under-par performance from his Wolves under-23 side in their defeat to Southampton on Monday afternoon.

The head coach admitted there were two or three poor displays by members of his squad, who have struggled for goals this season, but acknowledges the need for improvement which is a given to players at under-23 level, as they prepare for a life in professional football.

On defeat to Southampton

“Where do I start? I’m disappointed obviously, disappointed with the start of the game, I thought we started poorly and we let them get a foothold in it, which we’d spoken about not doing, so that was disappointing.

“Then I felt we had some chances, we had the one that looked like it was over the line, that then gets you back into it and I thought we grew into the game in the first-half.

“It was a little bit end to end, a little bit frantic, but they pressed and we were pressing as well, but then second-half I thought we were probably the better team, but I never really felt like we were going to do enough to get back into it.

“I don’t think our football was good enough, I don’t think our goal threat was quite good enough, but we did get one or two chances and at times when you don’t play brilliantly well, someone can pull you out of trouble by finishing an opportunity, and you get away with a draw or even 2-1.

“I thought all round we didn’t get the luck, but you make your own luck, and our football wasn’t good enough for us to complain.”

On not taking chances

“Overall, we should have won the game, but I can’t stand here and say we were far better than them and out-footballed them and should’ve won in that regard, but we did create enough chances to win a close game.

“We’ve conceded one goal and lost the game. We haven’t scored enough goals this year. Sometimes that’s from creating chances, sometimes that’s from taking chances, here I felt we created enough, but we didn’t take them.

“I know they don’t mean to miss, but you’ve got to take them because as you get further up the leagues and further up their careers, that’s what games are decided on.”

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Collins reflects on defeat to Southampton

On a ‘naïve’ performance

“I try and be honest with them, I thought there were two or three really poor performances, and I will speak to them individually. I thought the others who could have pulled them out of their trouble, didn’t in the moments they could.

“We worked hard enough after the slow start, and it wasn’t through lack of trying, but we didn’t quite have the guile, the class, to pull ourselves out of the trouble.

“Then right at the end, you put a ball in there and maybe you get some physicality, but we were still trying to play one or two touch football around the box and maybe that was a bit naïve with 30 seconds on the clock.

“We’ve got things to learn, but we’ll go over it again and that’s what under-23 football is, it’s development and there’s loads of learning things we can pick up from there which we can go through with the players collectively and individually. That’s what we’re here for.”

On the week ahead

“We’ve got a game on Wednesday in the Birmingham Senior Cup, which will probably involve a lot of the boys who haven’t started games, but it will be a good game for them. Those who need football, we will give time to them in that.

“We’ll probably have a couple of days down with the first-team, like we always do, which is brilliant for us, and then at the weekend we’ll build towards playing Newcastle away on Monday.

“We’ve got to dust ourselves off, because sometimes you get the luck and get the win and get away with it, sometimes you don’t, and we didn’t. But we move on.”