Nuno to mark 150th Wolves game against Arsenal

30th June 2020

Nuno Espirito Santo insists Wolves still have a lot of improvements to make, despite transforming a mid-table Championship club into a European title challenger in three years.

The head coach will mark his 150^th game in charge of Wolves against Arsenal on Saturday, but the club he walked into on the 31^st May 2017 is completely indistinguishable from what he has at his fingertips today.

Continuous success throughout his tenure at Molineux has seen Nuno establish himself as the only Wolves manager to have won more than half of his games in charge of the old gold, but even he admits that he was unsure of the feats the club would go on to achieve when he first took over the reins.

On transforming the club since arriving at Molineux

“I cannot lie, when I started, we didn’t know what was in front of us, but what we knew was that we had a fantastic club to take care of and try to become as huge as it was in its past history.

“But I know I’ve been proud of the work we have been doing since we started in the Championship. We’ve begun to build something.

“I think we’ve done the right things, but we’re still in a building process of what we expect to be a very good football team, that has already achieved important and remarkable things in the history of the club, but still has a long way to go.

“We still have a long way to go in terms of raising standards, being consistent and playing well and performing well, because there is still a lot of room to improve.”

#WOLARS

On an almost perfect Premier League restart

“They’ve done fantastically well, so what else can I say! We know what is in front of us and it’s going to be very tough.

“We know how we did things, and the how is always more important for our future. How we prepare for the next one; we’ll have to find new solutions and we’ll have to reinvent ourselves for a tough challenge.

“We started [back after the restart] very fast and we didn’t have time to prepare. We have new protocols – our dressing room is three minutes away from the pitch – so all these things will need adaptation for us.

“This week we will have to prepare ourselves, but the games will be very, very difficult, so we must use this time well and make it useful for us to improve.”

On winning more games on the road than at home

“We try not to make difference between home and away and what we see now is that football has changed.

“The main effect on home teams is their fans, so as long as we keep the same approach, it’s almost like playing in a neutral venue.”

Six to go.

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— Wolves (@Wolves) June 28, 2020

On having time to recover before Saturday

“We have a good week to recover. It was a tough cycle, three games in a week, and we know what is in front of us. This week will require a good recovery process and then prepare ourselves for the next challenge.

“It is a week that we will have to review things, try to analyse, but we don’t have too much time on the training ground.

“It’s about finding the right ways to pass on the right information to the players because sometimes it’s not easy to prepare yourself on the training ground due to the tight schedule.

“But there is always room to improve and the most difficult is to sustain your level of performance, sustain your standards, re-motivate game after game. But the boys are in high spirits, so let’s keep on working.”