Gary O’Neil hailed Pablo Sarabia’s ‘unbelievable quality’ after his impact against Tottenham Hotspur – and admitted the player forced his hand after shining in training.
Wolves fans are elated today after yesterday’s 2-1 win over Tottenham Hotspur. Wanderers fell behind early doors but came back to win right at the death.
It was thanks mainly to Sarabia that Wolves were able to take all three points.
The Spaniard came on for the last 10 minutes or so and scored a truly superb goal, and then assisted Mario Lemina‘s winner.
After the game, O’Neil lauded Sarabia and also said that he really saw the fire in him in training this week…
Gary O’Neil admits Pablo Sarabia forced his hand after showing his quality in Wolves training
O’Neil decided to go with Matheus Cunha and Hwang Hee-chan in attack yesterday. There was support for the duo in the form of Jean Ricner-Bellegarde and Rayan Ait-Nouri who was pushed up high on the left.
So it meant Sarabia again starting from the bench.
But O’Neil would turn to the £4 million man for the closing stages in the hope he could make an impact. He certainly did that.
Perhaps Sarabia may not have got on at all had he not been so good in training leading up to the game.
O’Neil admitted (via Wolves official): “He’s got unbelievable quality, especially for certain situations like today when we were having some joy but we were needing a bit more. We need to be a bit more incisive around the goal, and he brought two unbelievable bits of quality to make a difference.
“He forced my hand in the way that he trained this week, because we’re always discussing options, and Pablo just stood up and put in an unbelievable shift in training.
“I knew that if I needed him today he was going to be ready, and we were considering to do it earlier, but Jean [Bellegarde] was getting some joy down that side, but I was really pleased. When you can put a sub on and they have an impact like that, it’s obviously a big positive.”
Sarabia reminded us of his ability vs Spurs
Sarabia has not had the best of stints at Wolves and hopefully, this can now be the turning point for him. Indeed, Molineux legend Andy Thompson spoke for a lot of Wolves fans recently when he said that he had been disappointed with his stint given the hype when he signed.
Sarabia has previously spoken about adapting at Wolves and did mention that again yesterday in his post-match interview.
Hopefully the £90,000-a-week star will get there soon, because he is a quality player. That cameo against Spurs was a real reminder that Wolves do have a very talented and experienced player on their hands.
It’s good to hear O’Neil talking about how good he was in training leading up to Spurs.
Clearly, the player recognises he needs to be doing more if he wants to become a regular starter again.
His display against Spurs is bound to help his cause.