Wolves’ squad is being seriously tested at the moment, with several key stars currently in the treatment room.
Gary O’Neil got quite lucky in the first half of the season but since the turn of the year, the manager has had to contend with a quite a few setbacks.
It now seems an age since Matheus Cunha, Hwang Hee-chan and Pedro Neto all started a game together, and Wolves fans will still have to wait several weeks for it to happen again.
It is frustrating, because those three players were devastating together earlier in the season.
But over the last few months, there is one player at Molineux who has really come to the fore and established himself as a crucial member of the team…
Pablo Sarabia has seriously stepped up at Wolves amid recent injury problems
In the first third of the season, Pablo Sarabia was pretty rooted to the bench at Molineux.
The Spaniard just didn’t seem to be fancied by Gary O’Neil, who was very taken by the speedy trio of Cunha, Hwang and Neto.
Some fans started to question whether Sarabia – who is Wolves’ highest-paid player on around £90,000 per week – had a long-term future at the club.
But his stunning goal against Tottenham Hotspur back in November, which he then followed up with an assist for Mario Lemina to win the game, seemed to place him firmly on O’Neil’s radar.
He then came into the starting XI, with Neto suffering a hamstring injury that would put him out for two months.
Losing Neto’s creativity was a blow, but Sarabia stepped up.
Hwang went away to the Asia Cup with South Korea in January, meaning Sarabia kept his place in the side, and then Cunha picked up his hamstring injury, meaning more reliance on the Spaniard from O’Neil.
In the 16 Premier League games following Wolves’ 2-1 win over Spurs, Sarabia has started 13 of those. He’s also started two of Wolves’ four FA Cup games to date.
The ‘quality’ 31-year-old has managed three goals and laid on six assists in the Premier League and simply put, Wolves would be lower down the league table right now without his creativity. While the other three attackers have taken turns being out of the side, Sarabia has always been there delivering.
He has gone from benchwarmer to one of O’Neil’s most important players, purely because of all the goals and assists that have gone out of the team recently with Cunha, Hwang and Neto.
He’s been a bright spark for months, and he deserves big credit for turning things around at Molineux. At one stage, it did look as though he perhaps wouldn’t be sticking around too much longer.
Now, things have changed to such an extent that lots of Wolves fans now hope he’s next for a new contract at Molineux.