Ten players from Nuno Espirito Santo’s first-team have spent the majority of the past two weeks away with their national teams following the FA Cup victory over Manchester United.
But in his pre-match press conference ahead of today's Premier League clash with Burnley, the head coach confirmed all his players returned to Wolverhampton fit and ready to play.
On international players
“Everybody’s okay. They’ve covered many miles and it’s been special occasions for some of those, but everybody’s fit and available.
“What we do here, is totally trust the managers of national teams to manage well and make the right decisions.
“When a player goes to his national team we are supportive of that, we totally trust them, to the point that we send our own data to the national teams’ technical staff for them to analyse. At the same time, they send data back on what our players do there.
“We work side-by-side, along with the player, because what both parts want is for players to be healthy, to have game time and to develop.”
On Diogo Jota’s first call up to senior Portugal squad
“He was not disappointed [not to start], he was happy to go to his national team, Portugal, who are European Champions.
“The quality of players involved in the Portugal squad is very high, so for Diogo to go and be involved in the national team, he cannot be disappointed – his moment will come.
“National teams have best player in each country, so if we have a Wolves player involved in that, and we have players in the top-ranking national teams – Belgium is number one – so we can only look at the positives, never being disappointing.
“The players just need to keep focused, keep working well and everything will come naturally.”
On Leander Dendoncker starting both qualifiers for Belgium
“He keeps on improving himself, dedicating himself, keeping focused. He came back healthy as he had 180 minutes of very tough games, so it’s good for him and it’s good for the club.”
On Raul Jimenez scoring for Mexico
“It’s important. It’s not a question of relief. He was not involved in the second game, but at the same time he travelled many miles, 14 hours on a plane.”
On Morgan Gibbs-White’s expected promotion to England under-21s
“He has quality. The generation of world champions of England have a lot of quality and I think the youth football in England is working very well.
“The manager of the under-21s [Aidy Boothroyd] was here with us and he has had a chance to see us. He came to all the clubs he has players at.
“But there are a lot of players that he can count on and hopefully Morgan is one of them. What he has to do now is be focused, compete well, train well and hope for things to come.”
