Nelson Semedo has enjoyed his best season at Wolves since his arrival – but Gary O’Neil says there is still one aspect of his game the full-back needs to improve.
Semedo has shone this term for Wolves, without really getting the credit he should have.
The forward players Pedro Neto, Matheus Cunha and Hwang Hee-chan have lapped up the praise for their efforts in the final third, meaning players like Semedo and Rayan Ait-Nouri have gone under the radar a little bit.
But undoubtedly, the Portugal international is showing his best level since he arrived at the club in the summer of 2020. Max Kilman said after the win over Fulham that his teammate is just ‘top quality every week’.
Semedo’s defensive capabilities have improved a lot this year – but Gary O’Neil has identified one aspect of his game he would like to see him improve…
Gary O’Neil wants Nelson Semedo to improve his final ball for Wolves
This morning, The Athletic published a feature on Semedo that included some quotes from Gary O’Neil.
The manager has been a huge fan of Semedo, playing him practically every game this season.
He’s started all but one game in the Premier League so far. The one he missed against Bournemouth was as a result of suspension.
The £80,000-a-week star has been tremendous and on Saturday in the 2-1 win against Fulham, his shot found the back of the net via a deflection from Tom Cairney.
Semedo’s goals and assists numbers for Wolves are actually quite low for the positions he gets himself in, and O’Neil is keen for him to bump them up moving forwards.
He said: “I think he’s made improvements. We’ve worked really hard on some body shape stuff with him defensively. That seems to have helped him.
“We still want to improve his final ball, but he knows I’m not not saying anything that he doesn’t already know.
“He arrives so well in attacking areas that he gets an awful lot of opportunities to put dangerous balls into the box and I think we can still help with the quality from him.
“But as you’ve probably seen by the team selection and the amount of times he comes off as a sub, I’m a big fan of Nelson — not only as a footballer but as a person. The way he works every day is incredible.
“I know I say that a lot about all of them, but he’s unbelievably low maintenance and gives very high outputs on a Saturday which, as a manager, is obviously the ideal type (of player you want to work with).”
O’Neil’s comments are very fair
Semedo – who Pedro Neto believes is ‘underrated’ – has been fantastic this season and he deserves huge credit for turning himself into a solid and consistent Premier League full-back/wing-back.
He has clearly worked very hard on the training ground, and relished working with O’Neil.
The manager’s comments about him improving his end product are very fair though. In his 135 appearances for Wolves so far, he has scored just three goals and made five assists.
These numbers are nothing to shout home about considering the dangerous positions he gets into.
If the 30-year-old can just start chipping in with a few more, he will take his game to the next level – and you wouldn’t put it past him to do that.