Express & Star

Gary O'Neil: Wolves must learn from mistakes

Gary O’Neil says Wolves must learn from past mistakes next season after seeing their squad decimated by injuries.

Published
Wolverhampton Wanderers manager Gary O'Neil

After a tumultuous summer in which Wolves sold several players and made few additions, O’Neil and his side have proved the doubters wrong by putting themselves in European contention.

The club were unable to bring any players in during January either, despite allowing Fabio Silva and Sasa Kalajdzic to leave on loan, and a number of injuries to an already small squad has forced O’Neil into starting academy attackers.

Now, O’Neil believes Wolves must learn from a difficult period and create a bigger squad.

“As a football club, we need to learn from all the situations we’ve faced,” O’Neil said.

“I understand the financial restrictions in play at the football club at this moment, but it shows us that registering 19 senior players leaves you really, really short.

“Five injuries is not a huge amount. In an average Premier League week, you generally have four players missing, so we’re one above the average and it’s really depleted us.

“The fact that a lot of them are in the same position obviously doesn’t help, but we do next season need to carry a slightly bigger squad with a bit more depth to help the guys that are doing unbelievably well.

“The reason we’ve been able to have some success this year is because of the quality that we have, but now we’re suffering on the other side of that because we’re a small group and the lads are having to give an awful lot.”