Gary O'Neil salutes 'huge' Sasa Kalajdzic moment for Wolves
Gary O’Neil saluted a “really big moment” for Sasa Kalajdzic after the striker’s first goal for Wolves earned his team victory at Everton.
The Austria international came off the bench to score the winner with just three minutes remaining at Goodison Park, helping O’Neil claim his first victory as Wolves boss since taking over from Julen Lopetegui on the eve of the season.
Kalajdzic was making just his third appearance for the club after missing nearly a year of action with a serious knee injury sustained on his first appearance following a £15.4million move from Stuttgart last September.
“He’s very popular in the dressing room. He’s very highly thought of in the group,” said O’Neil.
“They’ve obviously seen him go through a tough spell and he’s fighting his way back so to be in there with the people who have been around him through tough times and get to celebrate with them, especially with the nature of it and the effort and work everybody put in today, it’s fitting that Sasa got to have a really big moment.”
O’Neil also reserved words of praise for goalkeeer Josa Sa, who made a big save from Abdoulaye Doucoure with the score at 0-0.
“He made some big saves, especially the one when we were on top and had just scored a disallowed goal and Fabio Silva had missed his one on one,” said O’Neil.
“I was stood on the side thinking we needed to go on and win because we were in the ascendency.
“They broke away off a long ball and Sa had to dig us out because conceding them when we’d been on top for a long time would have been tough for the lads to take.”
The only sour note for Wolves was a hamstring injury to Hwang Hee-chan. O’Neil confirmed the South Korea international will undergo a scan on Sunday.
