Nuno handed out three debuts and gave minutes to seven Wolves Academy players at Villa Park and will look at their performance and development in more detail than the result. Despite exiting the competition, Nuno was pleased with the evening’s work and the building process, which saw a host of youngsters gain experience which could prove beneficial to Wolves in the future.
On the efforts of the youngsters
“I think they worked hard. We were organised, worked hard, young boys, I’ve told them to keep on working next time because the chance will come, they must believe more in themselves, there is a lot of talent.
“They do it in the training sessions every time, so let’s work hard keep on bringing players, but the game was hard for us. Villa are a good team, they had good possession of the ball, but I don’t think they harmed us too much and we had chances, so I’m proud of the boys.”
On their application
“It was a tough evening, but I’m proud because the players stuck to what we want. They should show more talent, but they had big help from the experienced players like John (Ruddy) and ‘Benno’, helping the youth, this is what we want for the future, to bring players up so we can count on them.
“I have faith in them. From the beginning, from the first season, this competitive always gives space to the players to show themselves, to keep on building them, and this is what we want for our future. We have to prepare players for us and our reality is to play in front of 40,000 people, with the pressure on, this is what the boys should have.”
On the building process
“We don’t make decisions on what we have and since we started, for three seasons in the Carabao Cup, it’s a competition that we’ve wanted to give a chance to youth players, to make them develop and grow.
“We have competitions to play. This is the same approach we had in all the games in the Carabao Cup, which we respect a lot, we always put players in because we want to build players, build a team, build a better squad for our future.”
On how the youngsters can develop more
“There’s a building process, we want to build a team that can be stronger in the future. This is what we want from our Academy, I trust them, I believe in them, and put them to play.
“We have a small squad because this is the way we’ve worked since the beginning, having all the players involved and counting on the back-up of the under-23s. We want to build a team and a squad and create an identity in this competition.”
