The head coach was convinced the visitors should have been given a spot kick when Raul Jimenez was brought down by Nick Pope when the Mexican capitalised on a mix-up in the Magpies’ defence, but VAR sided with the initial decision made by referee Andrew Madley. Despite the decision, Lopetegui felt his team did not do enough during the opening 45 minutes to deserve more than they got in the north east.
On tasting defeat at Newcastle
“It’s always difficult to accept a defeat because you want to win all the matches. It’s difficult but we have to do it and we have to improve and to continue working for the next match. I don’t know if we deserved more. If it was just the second-half, then yes, but in the first-half, they were better than us. We hit the post and after a very clear penalty, which was a pity.
“In the first-half, they overcame us but in the second-half we improved a lot and we changed many things, we overcame them, we deserved to score and in the end we should have drawn the match.”
On Wolves’ first-half penalty shout
“For me it was a very, very clear penalty for us. We are very unlucky with the referee and we were also very with the referee in other games too and this is a pity for us. It’s true that we have suffered big mistakes – a lot of matches ago at Liverpool and again today.
“For me, it was a penalty. Maybe the VAR can help the referee more in this case. We were very unlucky with the decision and we haven’t had any penalties since I arrived here, but we have to continue working.
“I don’t want to put the focus on the referee, I prefer to focus on the fact we’ve improved many things in our team, and myself too because I’m not happy with the end of the match and we should manage it in a different way.”
On substitutes making an immediate impact
“The substitutions depend on the players and afterwards it’s not a good change because I did this change to be very strong in defence and it was a pity we suffered the second-half and we didn’t have the calm and the capacity to overcome them at the end.”
On first goal from a Wolves striker this season
“I would have preferred anyone to score [another goal], so we’d have had one point more.”
🇰🇷🔥 pic.twitter.com/7zjmkpvJ6n
— Wolves (@Wolves) March 12, 2023
On improvements made to fight against relegation
“The relegation fight is going to be until the last match. It involves a lot of team, a lot of good teams and we have to be ready. We are in the middle of the battle.
“We want to be out, but we’re going to have to suffer if we want to deserve in the end to be out. Sometimes we will lose and sometimes we will win, but we have to put the focus on the next game, to continue fighting, to improve the right things and put the focus on what we have in front of us.”
