Although unsatisfied with the timing of the game, which comes just two days after Sunday’s Tottenham Hotspur clash, Lage has rallied the troops and will assess fitness levels before naming his team. Knowing the importance of cup competitions in England, the head coach says “the next game is the most important”, so will be heading to Nottingham with one thing on his mind – progression to the third round.
On the quick turnaround
“For me, it was a strange decision. Why did we play on Sunday? Because Tottenham played on Thursday and they have three days to recover to prepare for the game, so it’s not our fault we played Sunday. The same way, we should play on Wednesday, but Nottingham Forest don’t have the stadium available – it’s not our fault.
“In the middle, Tottenham have the three days, Forest continue to play at home, and we are in the middle – no attention for us. I think my players, the club and also the fans from Wolves, nobody thinks about us.”
On preparing for this schedule
“Now you can understand in pre-season why I did a lot of games with a short space – one day, two days to play again because here we don’t have time to argue, we just have time to go and play. After these games, with two days to recover, we’ll see because I don’t want to put anyone at risk and try to play with the best team on Tuesday.”
On preparing the same way
“The players and us, we have the habit to play, but at the moment we don’t have that big squad we need to be competitive like we were on Sunday in every competition. It’s time to recover and be fit and play like we did on Sunday against Nottingham Forest.”
On taking the Carabao Cup seriously
“When the people ask what the most important game is, the most important game is the next one, so, for me, we’ll work hard and prepare for the game against Nottingham Forest, the same way we prepared for Leicester and Tottenham.”
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On injured players returning slowly
“The important thing is all of us have a good relationship with our departments and all of us are working hard to bring as soon as possible the players with us. So, Boly started work on Saturday, which is good news for us, also Daniel [Podence] started work with us, which is good news. With time I’ll talk about the other players.”
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