Kightly believes in promotion bid

Michael Kightly believes Wolves have the character for another promotion tilt after their impressive response to their opening friendly.

Manager Mick McCarthy and the players admit the squad were ‘leggy’ in the 1-0 friendly defeat against Blue Square Premier side Wrexham, after two weeks’ gruelling work on the Compton training pitches.

They bounced back with a comfortable 3-1 win over Hereford on Wednesday, when Kightly equalised with a wonder volley.

Now the star winger reckons their response shows the mental strength of the players.

He said: “Even though it was only a friendly, it shows the character of the boys that we weren’t happy about how we performed.

“Because even though at the moment it’s all about fitness, we want to do well in every game.

“I don’t know about the rest of the boys but against Wrexham, personally I felt very ‘leggy’ and didn’t feel sharp at all.

“The game seemed a bit lackadaisical and I think we were all frustrated and disappointed by that. But Hereford were a lot better.

“Both while I was playing and then watching the second half, I thought we were a lot sharper and clearly looked the fitter side which was pleasing.

“I think you always get games like Wrexham first up, because the balls have only been out a few days and you’ve been working on getting your fitness up.

“The first game always seems a nothing match and it’s disappointing, because you’re still playing in front of the fans who have travelled and it ends up being not a very good game.”

Kightly believes Wolves will come to the boil at just the right time.

He said: ““We don’t want to be at our sharpest yet, we want to be at our sharpest on August 9.

“But the characters in the dressing room and the professionals that we are, we want to do well every game.

“Hereford was a massive improvement. If we can keep our fitness up and keep improving that standard we’ll be fine.”

McCarthy believes he has never seen a fitter group of players as the current Wolves squad, because they stuck to their summer programmes, with Kightly admitting this is the toughest pre-season he has ever done.

He said: “It’s been tough, probably the hardest pre-season I’ve done. With the injury last year it was frustrating for me, so coming back this pre-season I’ve been really excited.”