Julen Lopetegui: Competition key for Wolves wingers

Goals and assists have been hard to come by all season, while Lopetegui has changed his line-up looking for the best attacking solution.

Adama Traore, Pablo Sarabia, Daniel Podence and Pedro Neto are all fighting for minutes, and Lopetegui hopes that competition will help the team.

“When you have character and competition, it means you can always show your best,” he said.

“It’s about the daily work to show this and being able to compete. First of all, overcome your team-mate and stay in the line-up, and then help the team.

“But the players who start on the bench are key, and they have to be ready.”

Sarabia has fallen out of favour recently, but Lopetegui believes this period will also help him improve.

He added: “We have competition and that’s the first step they have to overcome.

“He’s trying to do it. Sometimes he has played more, a lot, and now he’s playing less.

“But it’s the same answer for him, Adama, Podence, Neto. All of them have competition and they have to be ready to improve the squad and the performance of the team.

“This is a good thing for them and us. After, we have to choose, but they all cannot play all the minutes.”

Adama has also been short on minutes, while his contract is up this summer.

Lopetegui said: “Adama is a good player and a very good guy.

“We are very happy with him. He’s helped us a lot, sometimes on the bench and sometimes in the line-up.

“It depends on what we want whether he plays more or not, but he’s always ready. He has to continue in the same way.

“Next season doesn’t matter now. Adama is always ready and when he plays he has a good answer. I am sure he will have the same in the next matches.”