Gary O’Neil praised Nathan Fraser following Wolves’ defeat to Brentford yesterday in the Premier League.
Wolves were handed a reality check yesterday, as they crashed to a surprising 2-0 defeat to the Bees at Molineux.
Wanderers put in arguably their best display of the season against Chelsea last weekend at Stamford Bridge, but followed it up with one of their worst.
It was a disappointing display, against a side Wolves have previously got the better of this season, but the return of Ivan Toney was key for the visitors.
The performance of Craig Dawson was always going to be key for Wolves, but sadly the veteran had an afternoon to forget.
Despite the poor result and performance, Gary O’Neil did praise Nathan Fraser after the game…
Gary O’Neil praises Nathan Fraser after Wolves’ defeat to Brentford
Fraser came on for Wolves at half-time, for what was only his second appearance in the Premier League.
Earlier in the game, Wanderers lost Matheus Cunha to injury and the hope is that it won’t be a serious one for the Brazilian.
Jean-Ricner Bellegarde replaced him, with Fraser coming then on at the break.
O’Neil said (via Wolves official): “I felt we needed someone who would be able to recognise the spaces that we were trying to create on the back line, especially when we’d lost Cunha.
“People weren’t recognising it well enough and Nathan’s a number nine, so he’s next in line and he made some decent runs to be fair to him, got in a couple of good positions, and he was the option we decided to go with.”
Cunha injury may open the door for Fraser
So O’Neil sounds fairly pleased with what Fraser showed yesterday in the defeat to Brentford, and one wonders now if he could be turning to the youngster a bit more.
The injury to Matheus Cunha is a big worry, although the Brazilian supposedly believes it isn’t too bad.
The club’s medical staff will now conduct tests to determine the extent of the damage – hopefully, Cunha will be right.
But perhaps even if Cunha turns out to be OK, O’Neil will hand more minutes to Fraser, as the manager needs to avoid running Cunha and Hwang Hee-chan into the ground.