Swansea vs Wolves | U23 Match preview

Wolves under-23s will ramp up their pre-season preparations this week as the start of their first campaign in Premier League 2 Division 1 creeps ever closer.

Rob Edwards’ side will travel to south Wales to take on a young Swansea City team this afternoon who swapped places with Wolves following their relegation from the top flight of development football.

Wolves will be hoping to bounce back from a disappointing pair of fixtures last Wednesday evening which saw one joint under-23 and under-18 side draw 0-0 at Hereford, while another lost 5-0 away to Kidderminster Harriers, which included conceding four penalties.

WHEN

Monday 4pm

PRE-SEASON RESULTS

0-0 v Hereford (A)

0-5 v Kidderminster Harriers (A)

0-1 v Villarreal B (A)

0-1 v Real Murcia B (A)

6-1 v Hednesford Town (A)

2-1 v AFC Wulfrunians (A)

PRE-SEASON FIXTURES

Wed 31st July, 12pm v Celtic (A)

WHAT THE BOSS THINKS

On a busy week of fixtures

“With the under-18s now in China, we’ve got our under-23s back together for what will be a tough week because after Swansea we travel straight up to Scotland to play Celtic on Wednesday.

“We’re trying to give the players a real action-packed Football League-style week, to get them prepared as much as we can for the season ahead.

“It will be good experience for the lads, but we’re looking forward to two more challenges in Swansea and Celtic.”

On conceding four penalties at Kidderminster

“I found out at half-time what had happened, but my mind was on the Hereford game at the time and I didn’t want to judge anyone until I had a chance to watch it back.

“Obviously, we were disappointed, the staff let the players know on the night and it was frustrating because we felt both teams were equally strong and capable of performing against both oppositions.

“We knew that we had to do everything right because both Kidderminster and Hereford are organised sides and have players who were in our lads’ position not that long ago. The problem might have been that our mindsets weren’t right and a combination of that with individual errors proved to be costly.

“We were disappointed for the players because this was an opportunity for them to show what they could do as there would’ve been people watching, but we need to be better as we’ve got higher standards than that.”

On Hereford tie

“We didn’t create much in the final third until late on in the game, but I thought there were lots of good elements, we had good control and a lot of our build-up was quite good, but once we got into the final third, we were a little bit blocked off and too slow in our play.

“I listened to the gaffer (Nuno) speaking after the first-team’s game against Crusaders and he said his players needed to be quicker, more precise, more accurate, and our lads were the same.

“I felt we started to do that towards the last 15 to 20 minutes, and the introduction of a couple of the young lads – Luke Cundle and Christian Marques – really added another dynamic in the final period.”

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