Collins comments on ‘naive’ Wolves U23 performance

Wolves’ Under 23 side were in action against Southampton in the Premier League 2 on Monday.

They lost 1-0 at home thanks to a sixth minute goal from Saints teenager Kazeem Olaigbe.

Their manager James Collins commented on the performance to the club website after the game.

“Where do I start? I’m disappointed, I thought we started poorly and we let them get a foothold, which we’d spoken about. Second half, we were the better team, but I never really felt we were going to get back into it.”

“I don’t think our football or goal threat was good enough, I don’t think our goal threat was quite good enough, but we did get one or two chances. We didn’t get the luck, but our football wasn’t good enough for us to complain.

“Overall, we should have won the game, but I can’t stand here and say we were far better than them. We haven’t scored enough goals this year. I know they don’t mean to miss, but you’ve got to take them.

“As you get further up the leagues and careers, that’s what games are decided on. There were two or three really poor performances.

“We worked hard enough after the slow start, but we didn’t quite have the guile or class. At the end, we were still trying to play one or two touch football and maybe that was a bit naïve with 30 seconds on the clock.”

It’s clear Collins does not want to hammer his young players after a loss and that he feels on another day, they could have won.

But some players slipped below the standards he expects and others did not do enough to take their chances or pull their teammates out of it.

Collins has a game tonight at 7.45pm against Coventry United in the Birmingham Senior Cup, where he will be hoping for a response.

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