Gary O’Neil says it’s vital that Wolves regain their momentum quickly and move on from their frantic defeat to Bournemouth on Saturday.
Wolves never truly recovered from a rough start to the game, trailing 3-1 after 20 minutes, which stunned the home side who were on the back of a four-match unbeaten run. However, the next Premier League test is around the corner at Everton on Wednesday night and in the dressing room on Saturday evening O’Neil saw the right response from his players.
On a frustrating afternoon
“Incredibly disappointing and self-inflicted. Some crazy, crazy errors there, especially early in the game. It's very difficult then, once you start as we did. The lads are equally disappointed. There's an understanding in there of what the difference was today compared to the last few, and we need to turn our attentions quickly to Wednesday with a big test away Everton that we can go and get something from.
“Bournemouth ask you certain questions, and unfortunately we didn't find enough answers. To give away the goals that we do, channel ball from Senesi that we worked on for ages. We did loads of work on it. To concede in the first minute from that gives you a battle, and then we end up getting ourselves back into it with a good goal, and then crazy penalties to give away. We need to make sure that we write them out off, of course, because you have no chance of winning a game if you give away goals like that. That that can't happen and we all understand that, and now we move to Wednesday.”
On errors leading to goals
“Any errors as big as those, at any point in the game at this level, are going to be really tough to bounce back from. They try, and they keep fighting and try and find a way back into it. But we just gave ourselves mountain to climb, which we haven't in the last four. In the last four we've been solid enough to be able to create some moments that have got positive results.
“So, off the back of four unbeaten, today is a bump for us. But of course the Premier League throws them up at you a lot. It's never going to be easy, never going to be plain sailing, and we need to make sure that we do a lot better on Wednesday night.
“To give away the goals that we did, from two back passes when we didn't need to go backwards at those moments, you can't win Premier League games with those sorts of errors. In the last few weeks we gave ourselves an opportunity to win games by being more solid and finding some moments of quality, and today we didn't do that.”
On hope in the second half
“They keep fighting to be fair, and when you think they’re dead and buried they find a way to get themselves back into it, and then again we found a way to shoot ourselves in the foot with a really poor fourth goal to give away. A tough day for everybody, of course, but it does come off the back of a good run, and there is a game on Wednesday that we have a real chance of taking something from.”
On harnessing the momentum
“We have to. It's the Premier League. We were never going to maintain momentum from now until May, so there was always going to be something that we had to bounce back from. We're really disappointed that it comes today, in a game that we thought we could win, but there is another one on Wednesday, so we go there and we get ready to fight again. The group are ready to go again, and we'll do that.”
On putting it right in the week
“A very quick turnaround. In the Premier League you can lose momentum at any moment, because it's so tough against everybody. Everybody can give you a tough game. Today we weren’t at our level, and Wednesday comes quickly for us to restart and get another good run.
“We've spoken to them already. You see after the game they're still together and they're ready to go, so we get them well prepared now physically, make sure they're rested, get the recoveries right. We go to Everton and we try and put in a real good performance.”