James Collins has hailed the performance of striker Nathan Fraser, whose hat-trick helped Wolves under-21s to a 5-0 victory over third-place Crystal Palace.
For the second game running at Aggborough, the old gold struck five times to claim three points in PL2 and, this time, it was Fraser who saw his off-the-ball work finally rewarded in front of goal. With the 21s keen to hold onto their division one status, head coach Collins admitted that he and his coaching team had built the game up, knowing that a win would be important ahead of a final day trip to face champions Manchester City. And his players duly delivered, with goals coming from Oliver Tipton and Owen Farmer either side of Fraser’s treble to complete a successful night for Collins’ men.
On the performance of his team
“I thought we were excellent and it was thoroughly deserved. The sending off makes a big difference to the game, but I thought we started the game well and on the front foot – similar to how we did against Everton.
“Crystal Palace are third in the league, they’re in the Premier League International Cup semi-final and I don’t think they’ve lost for 10 games. They’re not an easy team to beat and we were really on the front foot and penned them back.
“We took our chance and goal, but even then I think they came back from 3-1 down last week against West Ham with 10 men so I knew it wasn’t over at that point.
“There was a little shaky spell there at 1-0 and then we were really strong for the middle 30 minutes of the game – last 15 minutes of the first half, first 15 minutes of the second half.
“We got the goals and then it was a case of trying to see if we could help our goal difference because you never know whether that will help us in the end. We got to five but then we couldn’t quite get one or two more which would’ve helped.
“I can’t be grumbling about 5-0 and the boys can be delighted with their performance.”
On Nathan Fraser getting his reward
“Nathan does so much work for the team. At times he chases two or three centre halves for us which allows us to have more bodies behind the ball.
“He does a lot of work for the team and often doesn’t get his reward because maybe he’s almost overworking without the ball. He’s prepared to do it because he wants to help the team.
“Nights like tonight where he gets his reward for his goals are nice to see and he deserves it. The boys gave him a big round of applause in there – they realise how much work he does for the team and I’m delighted for him.”
On winning under pressure
“We built this game up and we don’t very often. We built this game up to be a big game and I actually said to them, it’s about time we put some pressure on you because you’re going to have to learn to play with pressure.
“They responded brilliantly and I’m delighted. If we can go to Man City on Saturday against a world class and outstanding team that have won the league and seem to win the league every year, against international footballers, let’s see if we can go and get a result there.”
On facing Man City on the final day
“We’ve got to play well. Sometimes you get away with six or seven playing well but against Man City, 11 have to play well and you need a bit of luck as well because they’re top players.
“They’ve got some of the world’s best players. They play good football, they’re well run and they’ve got the money to back that up. They buy good players and they produce good players.
“One of the reasons we want to stay in the league isn’t because we can’t produce players in the league below, it’s because you want to test yourselves against the very best.
“Man City are, if not the very best, one of the very best in world football and we’ve got to go there with confidence, belief, but we’re going to have to play well. If you don’t, they bulldoze teams in this league and we don’t want to be one of them.”
