Gary O’Neil admits he might be forced into ringing the changes for Wednesday’s Carabao Cup tie away at Brighton & Hove Albion, with several of Wolves’ backline facing injury concerns.
With the quick turnaround time between Sunday’s Premier League visit of Newcastle, the midweek trip to the East Sussex and another top flight derby with Aston Villa on Saturday, the head coach has revealed he is likely to put out a ‘very changed team’ in the cup.
O'Neil made 10 changes to his side for the second round win against Burnley, and it might be a similar number again for the third round tie as he looks to give his players maximum recovery time, while offering opportunities to those who have not featured as much as they would have liked so far this season.
On a busy treatment table after Sunday
“It’s a quick turnaround for us as well, from Sunday to Wednesday, I wouldn't have thought Daws would be able to play, Yerson [Mosquera] has had a couple of issues with his calves off the back of the Colombia game and did well to get through Sunday, Toti’s out, so we could be really short and we could see young lads at centre-back at Brighton, because we have another really big Premier League game coming at the weekend.
“It’s a small hamstring issue for Toti who will be fit for Aston Villa, I'm not sure on Brighton, and Andre had a bit of cramp. He asked to come off as he was feeling cramp in his calf, which was similar to Nelson [Semedo].
“Rayan [Ait-Nouri] was another unfortunate one with his ankle injury, which we hope is not too serious because we’re going to need him. He rolled his ankle, the same one he rolled before, so he’s hopefully not too bad, but it’s too early to say. We’ve got quite a few issues to deal with for the Brighton game, so I would think it'll be a very changed team.”
On bouncing back quickly from Newcastle
“We need to dust ourselves down and get ready to produce another performance in the week and see if we can go on better. The Premier League is tough and you can play as well as you want against Arsenal, it doesn't guarantee you anything, you can play as well as you want against Chelsea, it doesn't guarantee you anything.
“We knew the run of fixtures was tough, and Sunday’s performance and how far we pushed a Newcastle side that were obviously in Champions League last year, have got top players, an unbelievable bench, so there's a lot a lot of good in that. My job is to see things really clearly and I still see a team that stuck together, produced an awful lot of quality and went toe to toe with a team that are going to be higher up the league than us.
“But I'm the same as everybody else and was disappointed that we didn’t take anything from the game because I felt fairly calm.”
The pitchside view of a great team goal 🎥 pic.twitter.com/ZxGFYVQuCU
— Wolves (@Wolves) September 16, 2024
On Carlos Forbs’ debut
“The reason he was brought in, late as he was on loan, was because he does give us that one-v-one ability, and I thought you saw in the last stages was that he was a threat and caused Newcastle some problems.
“When we went 2-1 down, I thought the response, we could have still scored three or four at the end, and Carlos played his part in that. He will help us as well, whether that be from the start or whether that will be from the bench, he can definitely add something, and we'll probably see quite a lot of him on Wednesday.”
On turning attention to the Carabao Cup
“There are obviously a few things that impact confidence, one is results, which have been tough for us, and the second is performance, and you can take belief from the way you've played and what you've managed to produce.
“The lads understand that, and they know that especially with the draw being away to Brighton, on top of the tough Premier League games that we've had, it is a tough run fixture-wise, so they know that we need to just keep giving our best all the time and keep pushing ourselves. We want to be able to compete with the Brighton’s and the Newcastle’s, so we need to keep pushing ourselves to do so.”
Attention turns to a midweek cup match 🏆 pic.twitter.com/NKgSmDNdh5
— Wolves (@Wolves) September 17, 2024
On Fabian Hurzeler’s impact at Brighton
“I wasn't aware of his work before, to be honest, but when he was appointed, you look at what you're about to face, and all the teams you're about to face, we did some research and watched some of his stuff, and he’s done very well so far.
“He’s such a young coach but he’s a very good coach and has made a good start to life in the Premier League, which as we know is tough. It'll be another tough test for us on Wednesday.”
On balancing cup and league
“It’s a game that we want to win, of course, but a game that will probably need a lot of changes with the games coming as quick as they are and some of the small issues that we have within the group at the moment.
“There are certain areas in the squad that we can't afford to pick up injuries in, at this moment. Daws would be high risk on Wednesday, but we’ll obviously check out how he is and check how he's come out of the Newcastle game, but he put a lot in on Sunday, and we have our next league game in four days, so it'll be tricky to put too much into Daws, and Yerson, the same.
“It would be a big risk to put Yerson out there, and Toti will probably miss it with his hamstring. He’s another one which we could try and rush back if we wanted to, but there are some decisions that will need to be made, but I’m not willing to risk really important players to us in certain areas in the pitch with such a big game coming at the weekend against Aston Villa.
“It's important that the other lads get some minutes as well, so they're always ready if we need them. There's a lot of boys that have not played quite so much recently, and we'll get some minutes into them, as well as obviously making sure we try our best to win the game.
“For certain, Santi will start. I'm going to have to name a team and somebody's going have to play at centre-back – so Santi will play at Brighton on Wednesday.”
