Wolves are currently struggling with a number of injuries, and Gary O’Neil is now set for his most challenging period as Molineux head coach.
Wolves have enjoyed a great season up to now, and currently sit in 10th place in the Premier League on 38 points.
Wanderers had been rather fortuitous in the first half of the season on the injuries front, but now, O’Neil’s small squad is starting to feel the pinch.
Matheus Cunha and Hwang Hee-chan are both out of action for at least the next few weeks, and Pedro Neto was feeling a tight hamstring during the game with Newcastle on Saturday.
The trio have been exceptional this season for Wolves, so the situation is concerning – and it may lead O’Neil to change one other player’s position now…
Gary O’Neil might be tempted to play Rayan Ait-Nouri as a winger for Wolves
Hwang will not be available for around six weeks, and Cunha is set to be out until after the next international break.
They are two huge absences, and Wolves fans know that Neto is quite a fragile player, and so it may not be that he plays every minutes in the coming weeks.
Pablo Sarabia remains an option to play out wide for the manager, but one wonders if O’Neil might just be tempted to use Rayan Ait-Nouri as a winger in these coming weeks.
Ait-Nouri has operated as a wing-back for most of the season, which is the position he much prefers to play, over the role of a traditional full-back.
That’s because it gets more from his natural game, which is to dribble and get forward.
Ait-Nouri loves getting into advanced positions, which is why O’Neil may see pushing the Algerian into a wing position as a genuine option.
If he wants to keep the wing-backs system, then he’s got one of Hugo Bueno or Matt Doherty to come in on that left side, with Toti Gomes continuing as the left-sided central defender.
We have seen Jean-Ricner Bellegarde take up positions out wide and the Frenchman doesn’t look too bad there, but he definitely isn’t as natural as Ait-Nouri.
Ait-Nouri – who Hwang recently said has ‘exceptional’ skills and technical ability – can sometimes lack end product, but the £10 million star is a serious talent that O’Neil thinks really highly of.
Maybe the manager will see some value in getting him to play higher up during this injury mini-crisis.