Gary O’Neil says he saw some of the fruits of his labour in Wolves’ performance against West Ham United in the Stateside Cup on Saturday evening.
Elements of training over the past three weeks were visible in the Old Gold’s win over the Hammers according to the head coach, whose only disappointment was a knee injury to first goal scorer Matheus Cunha. O’Neil hopes the injury isn’t too serious and he went on to see Rodrigo Gomes score twice after the break.
The head coach also confirmed Jose Sa, Nelson Semedo, Joao Gomes and Pedro Neto will rejoin the group on Sunday and he hopes to give them minutes during the tour’s final stop against RB Leipzig next weekend.
On a positive performance and result
“It was a good evening. The performance was excellent, I thought we were dominant, good with the ball, good without the ball. The centre backs did well in the four, moving away from the five we were a lot last year. We coped well, so pleased. A good outing for us. I said to the players that I’m really proud because they’ve worked so hard for three weeks and to see it come together this evening was pleasant.
“We’ve worked hard, so to see a lot of it come out was pleasing. Of course, there are false positives in there because West Ham won’t have prepared it like a real game and won’t have seen us like that before. It’ll be much tougher than that once teams know what we’re doing, but a great start point.”
On a disruptive start
“As it got to 8.15pm, I started to get doubtful. I was disappointed because we planned the week really well around everyone’s minutes and what tomorrow looks like, and what Crystal Palace is going to look like. So, it would have thrown a bit of a spanner in the works, but thankfully the storm passed, and we were able to play. Then the lads did really well, and the pitch held up well – I was thankful we could get it on because now the week can go as we planned it.”
On the minutes players got
“I was considering limiting a couple. The first team was due to do 60, but I was maybe going to change a couple at half-time. Cunha would probably have been one, but he felt a slight pain behind his knee already, so he came straight off, and Channy played a bit more than we prepared for.
“Channy had done a bit of travelling, so hadn’t trained for a few days. He went back to Korea to sort out a family situation that he needed to be around, so missed a little bit. Channy did well to play as long as he did off the back of a lot of travel and not much training. The rest of it went as planned, 60 minutes for a lot and 30 for the others, and we’ll try to get some more minutes into the other guys in the Crystal Palace game.”
On Cunha’s injury
“He has some awareness behind his knee, so when he played a pass with the outside of his foot, he felt a slight pain behind his knee. It’s disappointing. With the game being delayed and the wet pitch, they work so hard and are finely tuned, so it doesn’t take much to throw them. That was my main concern in the build-up, that we needed a game, but how much we increased the risk of injury on players.
“You never know, Matheus could have got injured if it was 7pm. Disappointing, as pleased as I am with the other stuff, there’s still that. Matheus is incredibly important to us, but the early signs don’t look bad. He won’t be risked again until he’s completely fine, so the next few days I can provide a update.”
On Gomes’ impact off the bench
“He arrives at the back post really well because he works so hard. No matter how far he’s got to make up, he always arrives at the back post. There was bits of his game I thought he could do better with tonight, certain moments he’s been better on the ball in training than he was today, but obviously it’s a great start for him. To join a new team and get two goals in his first proper game was nice for him. Not getting carried away – there’s loads of stuff I still want to improve and help him with.”
On having his full squad back
“I don’t know how ready they’ll be to play [Sa, Semedo, Gomes & Neto]. Hopefully we’ll have them available to play a part in the Leipzig game. They arrive on Sunday, so it’ll be nice to welcome them back. They’ve not had as long a rest as the others, but they’ll still be slightly deconditioned. They’ll need some work to see where they are and see how quickly we can get them back on the pitch. Looking forward to seeing them, speaking to them about how they did over the summer, and bedding them back in, showing them what we’re trying to do.”
