Wolves blog: Nuno is defying the deriders

The influx of Mendes talents to the club, along with a revamp of first-team staff, could have led to many assuming that bringing academy players through the first team would go on the backburner, writes Wolves blogger Tom Tracey.

In fact, it was used by those outside of the Wolves press and fanbase as a target of criticism that Wolves were ‘buying the league’.

So for Donovan Wilson to come on and score his first goal for the club against Southampton, having scored against the same team’s U23s in the same week, it doesn’t really fit in with the story.

Nuno also gave a debut, albeit in a pre-season friendly, to Austin Samuels – who duly repaid the boss with a match-winning goal.

Nuno hasn’t been averse to using academy players, with Sylvain Deslandes also getting 90 minutes on Wednesday night.

Bright Enobakhare has started every league game, at the expense of Ivan Cavaleiro in three of the four games.

Nuno said after the Southampton match: "Donovan has been performing well and training sometimes with us.

"It's not about only Donovan...it's Ronan, it's Jack a few years ago.

"It's about having 'wolves' in a Wolves team.”

This rhetoric has so far been genuine, with Nuno retaining faith in the potential already at the club as well as making the most of the expensive talent that has been brought in.

Walter Zenga, though using similar ‘wolf’ terminology that has been commonplace language used by the club since Fosun took over, was criticised for not taking notice or making use of the academy.

In fairness, he had a bloated and confusing squad which he had to make use of – though Nuno’s squad is big, so far he appears to have identified his inner circle of important players for league games.

Of course, this will change during the season due to form and injuries, but for now there is method and consistency.

This has meant the outsiders, who failed to impress in the first Carabao Cup round against Yeovil but achieved a superb result to beat Southampton, have a clear goal.

The bookies gave fairly tantalising odds for Wolves to win – which appeared fair when the team news came out that Wolves made eleven changes to their team.

But in 2017 Wolves have an unbeaten habit of defeating Premier League opposition in their own backyard.

Stoke and Liverpool were dispatched in a wonderful FA Cup journey back in January, with Southampton now being added to the scalp pile.

Waking up to view the third round cup draw, I expected to see Wolves with an inevitably glum away trip to the Northeast, with Sunderland and Middlesbrough as obliging options.

To get one of the only two League One teams left in the competition at home, and the lowest ranked team left, was a pleasant surprise.

Whilst they shouldn’t take anything for granted, and while this cup competition was never and still isn’t a priority, more first team games for the players with a point to prove can’t be a bad thing.

Wolves have more than an adequate number of players to play in this competition without it affecting their league progress too much.

They have a fantastic chance of reaching the fourth round for the first time as a Championship (or Division One) club since 1995.