Wolves are taking on Crystal Palace on Wednesday in their next pre-season friendly – and one player could surprisingly be in line for some minutes.
Pre-season has been going really well so far for Wolves.
The club have recorded three victories so far, with the latest coming against West Ham United at the weekend in Jacksonville.
Gary O’Neil appears to have the squad in a good way, and now he has four key players back in Jose Sa, Nelson Semedo, Pedro Neto and Joao Gomes.
Those four players had been given extended breaks after their exertions for their countries over the summer, and flew to Miami on Sunday.
They have had their first training session this morning.
And it looks like one of those players could actually be in contention to feature against Palace.
Gary O’Neil hints Joao Gomes could play for Wolves against Crystal Palace
After the game with West Ham, O’Neil spoke about her four returning players.
He said that he was not sure if they would be involved against Palace, and was more optimistic that they would play against RB Leipzig at the weekend.
Obviously, they are a bit behind the rest of the group after being given some extra weeks off.
But journalist Liam Keen dropped an update on the quartet today regarding the next game against Palace and seemingly, there is actually a small chance that £15 million star Gomes could play, with O’Neil apparently involving the Brazilian in the potential starting XI that he’ll use on Wednesday in a training session this morning.
Keen said (via E&S): “We don’t think that they’ll play a lot on Wednesday. If at all. There is probably a good chance they don’t. Albeit, Joao Gomes was quite heavily involved in what we think will be the XI for Palace.
“They’ve obviously got the Leipzig game on Saturday, which I expect all of them to play at least some part in.”
Gomes inclusion would be a surprise
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It will be a real surprise if Gomes starts straight away against Palace, considering he was the Wolves player who actually got the most minutes out of the four who were on international duty this summer.
It could be that Gomes has shown that his fitness levels are actually OK upon returning.
Or it may well be that O’Neil was simply looking at Gomes in an XI he intends to use in the first game against Arsenal.
It may well be that the XI he fields against Palace will be the one he uses against Arsenal, just with someone in place of Gomes.
Should he not feature against Palace, then it will be another chance for the likes of Luke Cundle and Tommy Doyle to stake their claims.