Rob Edwards may be without key Wolves player vs Crystal Palace as new training photos emerge

Rob Edwards took his first training session as new Wolves manager on Monday, but the new pictures released by the club suggest one player might be struggling to make the squad for Crystal Palace.

Wolves are back in Premier League action this weekend, and it’s a home game for Rob Edwards as he looks to get off to a good start.

Edwards is back at the club as Wolves manager, after Vitor Pereira was sacked at the start of the month.

Wolves had initially gone after Gary O’Neil, but after he declined the job the club pivoted to Edwards.

Wolves are confident that Edwards can unite the players and staff and instigate a turnaround at Molineux.

It is going to be a very tough job. But it’s one that he was clearly up for, leaving a good situation at Middlesbrough to return home.

And Edwards has finally had some training time with some of the players – and some new photos of his first session with the players have dropped.

• READ MORE: Matt Doherty in no doubt about Wolves’ fate now in 2025/26 under Rob Edwards

Matt Doherty not seen in new Wolves training photos

Edwards could only work with a fairly small group due to a number of players still being away with their national teams.

But yesterday, Edwards took a session with a group for the first time.

And the club have released new photos from that session, with the following first-team players present:

• Joao Gomes
• Ladislav Krejci
• Andre
• Fer Lopez
• Marshall Munetsi
• Yerson Mosquera
• Ki-Jana Hoever
• Jackson Tchatchoua
• Hugo Bueno
• Sam Johnstone
• Mateus Mane
• Enso Gonzalez

Rodrigo Gomes was, of course, not involved as he recently underwent groin surgery and will be out for the rest of the year.

But there was also no Matt Doherty.

In the Carabao Cup match against Chelsea, Doherty was substituted off early in the first-half after sustaining a medial collateral ligament injury, which thankfully was deemed ‘very low-grade’.

Phil Hayward – Wolves’ director of performance – said in an update on November 5 that Doherty would ‘definitely keep him out for a couple of weeks’.

This, Hayward said, was factoring in the international.

It seems Doc has yet to join his teammates for training, and may well be unavailable for the game with Crystal Palace.

Edwards appointment is good for Doherty

So there was no sign of Doherty in Edwards’ Monday session at Wolves, but perhaps that was to be expected.

Hayward did also add in his update earlier this month: “Often with these injuries they can get running pretty quickly, but it tends to be striking the ball and tackling actions which we need to take more time with and can end up causing more issues, we’ll be progressing towards this, but the first target is getting him running pretty quickly.”

Hopefully Palace will be the only game he’s unavailable for, because it feels like this team needs Doherty and it also feels like he’ll be a very important player for Edwards.

The pair already know each other, with Doherty having even played in the two games Edwards took charge of as interim manager all the way back in 2016.

Doherty has already insisted Edwards can lean on him for help, and one gets the feeling the Irishman will be his right-hand man moving forwards.