Gary O’Neil was left frustrated with Wolves’ defeat against Crystal Palace, believing his side were much the better team for most parts of the game at Selhurst Park.
Wolves dominated large portions of the game, but the head coach feels mistakes at both ends of the pitch proved costly for the Old Gold as the Eagles were ruthless in capitalising on those errors. However, O’Neil said he is able to take positives from the loss as he looks forward to spending an extended period of time working with his players during the international break.
On a frustrating game at Selhurst Park
“There was frustration with the final result, given how the week has been and given how the game was. I felt we had really good control of it for large parts and Palace took advantage of a couple of our errors with the ball and a couple of technical breakdowns.
“But in terms of the control of the game and we arrived in the box about 60 times, so it’s that bit that everyone’s aware of that we need to improve.
“We need to keep arriving, although we weren’t overly threatening once we got there. We’re disappointed because stood on the side it never felt as though we were under massive threat, but it was small situations where we turned the ball over on possession and Edouard gave us some issues once we lost the ball in those dangerous areas.”
On improving at both ends of the pitch
“Both still need a lot of work. We’re very disappointed with the goals and the chances we gave up because not at any time did Palace manage to cut us open – we created our own problems with the turnover of the ball when we shouldn’t.
“In a defeat it’s tough to see the positives, but I’ll analyse the game and there’s a big step forward there with what the lads are trying to do and still a lot of room for improvement.”
On taking positives from defeat
“There are positives and the groups approach to the matches at the moment is a huge one. They work their socks off and they got punished today in a couple of moments; the second goal came from nowhere, the first goal came while we were on top, and it’s a game where we shouldn’t have left with nothing, but we have.
“There’s still work to be done, but the lads have been top for the four weeks that I’ve been here. The work they’ve put in, the effort they’ve put in for this first block before the international break has been good. We haven’t got as many points as we’d like but we’ll go away, we’ll come back, and we’ll go again.”
On first month at the club
“I think we’ve done ok. There’s been a lot of work that has gone into improving what we are and the processes, and I can see some of those today, but there’s still a lot of work to be done.
“The Premier League is ruthless and when you make small mistakes the ball can end up in your goal and it did today, and we weren’t clinical enough in the final third, so there’s things we need to fix, but in terms of the group and their understanding, they’re still giving everything to the cause, which gives us a great platform to build on.”
On utilising the international break
“We have a lot away which is a shame because in this block you’d love to do some work but there’s still enough here that we can get some good stuff in. It’s been a busy four weeks, so we’ll assess where we’ve got to, they were together again today until the last whistle and it was no lack of effort or understanding, they just need to improve in certain areas.
“We’ll take the break, we’ll reset and then we’ve got a couple of tough games coming up, with Liverpool, Luton and Man City to come after the break, so three big games for us to get ready for.”
