Although frustrated with his team’s end to pre-season against Rayo Vallecano, Gary O’Neil believes his first summer as Wolves head coach has been a successful one.
Wolves struggled to reproduce the performances they had shown in their previous outings during the last month out in the USA, as more than 18,500 home supporters at Molineux witnessed a 1-0 defeat to the La Liga side, but with a big week ahead of the team, O’Neil is confident the players will be ready for the start of a new Premier League campaign away at Arsenal next Saturday.
On ending pre-season with defeat at Molineux
“I’ve got quite a lot out of the others, but I didn’t enjoy today. I thought it was flat and I didn’t think we got much out of the game. The way Vallecano played didn’t help us get much from it either because they were really direct, went 1-0 up quite early and let us have the ball, and we struggled to progress, which we might face sometimes, but it wasn’t like Premier League game today.
“But what I did get from it, was that we really struggled with large parts of it. We were obviously trying to win today’s game but trying to get a few people ready for the weekend against Arsenal, which will be a very different test.
“It was my least favourite game so far, and sometimes it can be a bit like that, the last game of pre-season, and you want it to be everything to get you prepared, and then they go 1-0 up early, it’s hot, and then the pitch gets slow, and we were not at our level quality-wise.
“I saw it in training as well the other day, since we landed back from America maybe the level has dropped slightly, whether there’s some tiredness because there was a lot of travel, but that’s out of our system now and we need to get back to work on Monday.
“The lads have seen the difference of when we are at our level against West Ham and Leipzig and even Crystal Palace at times, and then today when we dropped well below it. It’s been a frustrating day and I didn’t enjoy it, but there’s still stuff that we can learn from it which will be important for us.”
On slight injury worries
“Jorgen had a little issue in the warm-up with his groin which was a little frustrating. He felt he was ok to play and I was desperate not to risk him but he said he was fine, so we got him an hour and hopefully he’ll be ok.
“Mario had a bit of cramp in his hamstring, but we’ve had a really good pre-season and today I’m frustrated because I didn’t want it to finish out like it did. We now move to a very different test at the Emirates which will be a test of everything we are and we need to make sure we’re ready.”
On an enjoyable first pre-season as head coach
“I have enjoyed pre-season, apart from today. But my staff are keen for me to not just see all the negatives, and they were in there trying to remind me it’s been a good pre-season and today was below our level, but over the course of the last five weeks, there’s been some fantastic work and some really good performances, but there was a lack of quality today when we got into good areas.
“We missed passes and we missed crosses, made some real strange decisions, but over the course of the five weeks there’s been some really good stuff. The new lads have gelled well, there’s a good feeling in the group, and maybe today was a good reality check that we can’t just go out there and expect it to be fantastic all the time.
“There’s a lot of work that goes into it and we need to make sure we get to our level. I’m looking forwards to watching it back because there’s lots of things in there which I think can help us with. But it’s been a positive pre-season. We haven’t conceded too many goals, we’ve looked an attacking threat, we were just a little bit slow and off it today.”
Thank you for your support at Molineux today.
— Wolves (@Wolves) August 10, 2024
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On preparing for the Premier League
“Next week is a big one for me to make sure the lads are ready for the Premier League and next week is a big one for us in the transfer market. The early business that we did was great because it showed everyone that we mean business and we are able to do stuff, Rodrigo, Pedro, Jorgen, it’s fantastic of the club to get them done so early.
“We are all really aligned with what we want to do here, and we understand there are still challenging situations which we’re trying to manage. We’ve made another £100 million this summer, we made £100m last summer, and that does provide its challenges to keep the team staying competitive and keep the team as strong as it once was four or five years ago when they were competing for Europe and there was fantastic times here.
“We’re trying to get it back to that, but with a very different make-up behind the scenes that we’re working to. But I enjoy those challenges a lot.”
On transfer window plans
“Me and Matt [Hobbs] have spoken a lot about what we’re trying to do, trying to get players in who can help us with the money we’ve received, and hopefully we can help this group now, because they’re in a good spot, they’re giving everything, but the Premier League is tough.
“We’ve signed a lot of young players and hopefully we can sign a few that can help us in the here and now, as long as some more young ones. As a club, we try to sign ones who are going to add value to the football club, Rodrigo and Pedro especially, they’re ones who have real talent, but also have a [resale] value.
“But we do need to do some who are ready now and have played in the Premier League and know what it’s all about because it is going to be a tough test. We need to make sure we get it right, we need to make sure that I get the team right, and I’m really looking forward to the season, but there is still some work to do between now and the end of August.”
