Gary O’Neil is hoping his Wolves players can ‘start to upset a few people’ and add points to the board despite a tricky run of games facing his side in the coming weeks.
Starting at home against Newcastle United on Sunday, O’Neil’s side will then face West Midlands rivals Aston Villa, unbeaten Liverpool and reigning Premier League champions Manchester City in their next five top flight games.
Although he believes not many people outside of Wolves will expect much of his players, he insists that is not the case from inside the squad and has called for his team to show just what they are capable of.
On facing the Magpies this weekend
“They have an abundance of quality attacking players, midfielders, even defenders. I know they’ve had a couple of injury issues, but obviously signing Lloyd Kelly on a free transfer – someone who I admire a lot, I thought he was excellent at Bournemouth, and a real good signing for them – so they’re going to be a big test.
“Isak is one of the best number nines in the league for me, so they are a team that are going to test us, definitely, but a team that we played twice last season, a team that we did pretty well against in both fixtures. I know the away one we end up losing comfortably, but it wasn't the full story of the game, especially for where we were at that time.
“I’m looking forward to getting back into Molineux, getting the group that we know we're going to work with from now till January, at least, and seeing if we can start to upset a few people like we like we managed to last season.
“A lot of our results came unexpectedly last year, and we're going to need some of them again this season. I’m really looking forward to the challenge.”
On his relationship with Eddie Howe
“Eddie and his team of staff and the team of players have had an incredible couple of years up there, and I'm sure they'll continue to do so.
“I know Eddie well, he’s done an excellent job there. I have a real respect for him and what he's done. British, English managers working in the Premier League, there's not too many, so it's nice to see Eddie, especially as high up the league as he is and as he's been over the last few years.
“He’s worked his socks off to take Bournemouth from the bottom of League Two to get himself to a club that competes in the Champions League last season, so it’s been an incredible journey for him. But you don't get that through luck or without sacrifice or without an awful lot of hard work and intelligence, so Ed’s a really good manager.”
On sharing ideas with other managers
“We don't bounce things off each other at all. I think we're both probably a bit too private and proud for that, both of our own way of doing things and both probably fairly confident in what we do and what we want to achieve.
“But there’s still a real respect of what he's done there and what he'll continue to do until he until he decides that management's not for him anymore, because I'm sure he'll be successful no matter where he goes.”
On a difficult run of fixtures ahead
“We approach every game like if we nail what we've worked on and the game plan and how we want to be, that we have an opportunity to win, no matter who it's against. We know at this moment, we're going to play a lot of teams that will be expected to finish high up the league.
“The feeling around the place at the moment is that not many people outside of here expect us to take many points out of the next run of games, as well as the ones we’ve just played at the start of the season, but that's not our expectation.
“Our expectation is to give everything to show that we've got good players, to show that we've got a good side, to show that we've got more depth now, and to see what we can achieve. The season gets going for me fully when the when the window closes, it’s my favourite part of the season when you know exactly where everybody is, and we're at that point, so I'm looking forward to getting going.”
On Jose Sa’s future
“The transfer window closing draws a line under everything and everyone knows now exactly where they are for the next three-to-four months, and they know that the only aim is to get into this team. The only aim is to help this team be successful for the next few months, which help.
“Jose has trained really well. He was away with Portugal for a significant amount of the international break, but since he's been back, he’s trained really well. He trained well again this morning, so there’s a lot of games coming up and he knows that he could be needed at any moment.
“He knows that the shirt isn't just given to Sam [Johnstone]. Whoever wears that shirt at the weekend needs to earn it, so let’s see how that goes, but he's given himself the best chance at the moment.”
