Wolves are flying high in ninth place at the moment and could potentially book their place in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup tomorrow night – but Gary O’Neil said something today that was slightly concerning.
It’s been a tremendous season so far at Molineux, with Gary O’Neil proving so many people wrong after he replaced Julen Lopetegui just days before the season started.
The 40-year-old has masterminded some amazing results, got all the players to buy into him and his methods, and created a fantastic connection between the players and the fans.
Things have been going better than anyone could really have imagined, but O’Neil is keen to keep perspective and today, he actually made a slightly concerning admission at his press conference…
Gary O’Neil says some of his Wolves players are starting to tire now
Wolves have been relatively lucky on the injury front this season.
Really, only the three attackers – Matheus Cunha, Pedro Neto and Hwang Hee-chan – have had extended periods out.
The good luck has meant that it hasn’t mattered too much so far that Wolves don’t have a particularly big squad.
But O’Neil said today ahead of the game with Brighton that some of the members of his squad are actually now starting to feel a bit of fatigue.
He said (Wolves official): “We want to win every game and we need to give ourselves a real good chance in all of them. It’s going to be a tough finish to the season because a few of the lads are creaking a bit, there’s tired bodies and we have a small squad so some of the lads have to play lots of minutes in every game.
“We’re getting to a point of the season where it’s getting tough for some of them and we need to keep pushing and keep going all the way to the end of May. It will be a tough test, the next 12/13 games, but we need to keep the group together and see what we can achieve.”
Wolves up against it to secure European football due to small squad
Despite how well Wolves have done so far, it will still be really hard for Wolves to get some kind of European football come the end of the season.
This admission from O’Neil is the reason why.
Wolves have had a small squad all season, and it got even smaller when the likes of Jonny Castro Otto, Sasa Kalajdzic, Fabio Silva and Joe Hodge all left in January.
Wolves have had a pretty good injury record this term, but the business end of the season is where fatigue really does start to set in.
Quite a few of Wolves’ players – like Max Kilman, Craig Dawson and Nelson Semedo – have played pretty much every game this season and are bound to be feeling a little jaded.
If most of O’Neil’s players can continue to stay out of the treatment room though, Wolves will have a great chance of securing European football.