Nuno proud of Wolves FA Cup run
Nuno Espirito Santo has spoken of his pride at Wolves reaching the FA Cup semi-finals – as he said only hard work would help the club realise its dreams.
Wolves are in the last four of the competition for just the second time in 38 years and face Watford at Wembley on April 7.
The club's 33,000 allocation of tickets were expected to sell out today.
And Nuno said: "It’s the oldest competition there is and we are very proud that we are able to compete in a semi-final.
"From the beginning, we knew how important the FA Cup is; what it means for us, what it means for the club and what it means for football."
Nuno has recently referenced how he hopes to lead Wolves to a return of their glory days of the 1950s.
He says a strong work ethic will be vital to the club reaching its short and long term goals.
"The best way to be ambitious is to work hard every day," he said.
"Dreaming doesn’t give you things – hard work gives you things.
"We have to realise the history of the club is important; it’s massive, but it was in the 50s, the 60s, the 70s – it was a long time ago.
"Our ambition is that we’re able to compete the best way that we can every game to make our fans proud.
"If we can achieve things, that will be in the future; it’s in the present where you put the focus on your tasks.
"My job is to prepare for the next session. My ambition is to prepare well for the next game. This is how I think.
"I want to be ready to play the next game the best way that I can.
"Have the team well-prepared, have the players focused, and ready to compete and fight, like we do every game. This is my job and ambition.
"We know the job that we have to do, and we know our focus is only on a daily basis. We go training session after training session, we have an international break, and there are two games before the semi-finals.
“We go game-by-game, so we cannot allow ourselves to get distracted and not allow ourselves to not do our things right.
“It helps (having the focus of a semi-final and league targets), but it doesn’t change. We do what we did before."
Wolves travel to face Burnley on Saturday, before hosting Manchester United next Tuesday and then heading to Wembley for their FA Cup semi-final against Watford the following Sunday.
“It’s tough, but it’s about anticipating well, preparing the players well for the cycle ahead of us and the, as the game goes by, we know there is a tough cycle," Nuno said of the week ahead.
“Three games in a week requires a lot of effort, a lot of energy, and we have to prepare well, but also recover well after the game. The way we allow players to recover from their games to be ready again is basic.
“But we know it’s going to be a tough challenge, three games in a week is tough.”
