The head coach – who held a meeting with refereeing chief Howard Webb at Compton Park on Thursday morning having raised issues with decisions which have gone against his team in recent matches – has seen his side lose just once inside 90 minutes from his opening six matches at the helm. And with the visit of West Ham United to Molineux coming up on Saturday afternoon, Lopetegui insists he is working hard with his players to get them to the top of their level in order to claim a crucial three points.
On improvements made to the squad
“It’s not enough. We have to continue working a lot, continue knowing that each team in England, in the Premier League, is good enough to beat you.
“All the teams have fantastic players and good coaches, so we have to always be at the top level of us to win each match. We try to do it and to get used to ourselves to stay in our best level. This is very important for us.
“We now meet a very big team in West Ham, with a fantastic coach, Moyes is a friend of mine, and they don’t have this hard match three days ago, so we have to be ready to prepare this match well.”
On his relationship with Moyes
“I’ve known David for a long time. He was a coach in San Sebastian [Real Sociedad] and they are my team. They are from my country and my part of Spain, and after we have had a very good relationship.
“When I was the national team coach, we spoke a lot, and then last year, we played against West Ham with Sevilla. He has done a fantastic job in England and with West Ham, he has a very good squad, with very good players and we have to be ready.
“The most important thing is to be able to start and do a very good match against a very good team.”
🇧🇷🗣 pic.twitter.com/4wRLnejoyb
— Wolves (@Wolves) January 12, 2023
On turning attention to the Premier League
“The most important competition is the Premier League, so we have to put the focus in this. We have had a very hard match, two hard matches in a few days, against Liverpool and against Nottingham Forest.
“But now we have enough motivation to recuperate and recover our strengths to be able to play against a very good team, a very strong physical team, with technical player also, so we have to be ready.”
On reaching the midpoint of the season
“The only aim that we want to achieve is the three points in each match. There’s no more. This is the only way that I know to go ahead in football, is thinking only in the next match.
“I repeat this a lot and a lot of coaches repeat the same, but this is true. We have to work to be focused in the daily work and don’t think so far, only in the next match.”
A @Raul_Jimenez9 goal secured the win the last time we met @WestHam at Molineux.
— Wolves (@Wolves) January 13, 2023
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On squad fitness
“We have a little bit of problems, but that’s why we have to check. When you play every three days, this is normal and we are in this moment because we have played a very hard match just 48 hours before. This is normal.
“[Costa] has worked today a bit with us. At the moment, we don’t know what the squad list will be and we’ll have to think a little bit more about this. We are going to make the decision in the next few hours and after this, of course, the line-up.”
On his meeting with Howard Webb
“It was a good meeting. I’m not going to translate with you our private talk, but he was very polite to come here and to have breakfast with us. We had the chance to talk with him, to change impressions, and in the end, sometimes we agreed, sometimes we didn’t. But this is all.
It wasn’t a special meeting because he was supposed to come. It was just a polite visit, we had some breakfast and we talked about a lot of things, not only about our own matches. It was a very interesting talk with him.
“But this is in the past. We now have to see in front of us, because we have a very important match tomorrow and this is the most important thing we have in our minds and we have to put the focus in this.”
