Express & Star

Rob Edwards positive despite losing start for Wolves U23s

Boss Rob Edwards is confident Wolves Under-23s will succeed in the top flight despite starting the season with a 2-0 loss at Brighton.

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Edwards' side are in Premier League 2 Division One after winning the Division Two title last term.

And he is taking the positives from the Brighton game on Monday night, which was settled by Aaron Connolly's quick-fire brace.

“It was obviously not the result we would’ve wanted, but there were enough positives in the game to indicate that we can be alright this season and the players, as individuals, can progress well and have a good year," said Edwards.

"I come away from the game clear on where we need to improve, which is quite good as sometimes you come away from a game and you have to look back a few times to analyse it to know what you can do better, but this game made it quite clear.

"I thought the attitude from the players was great, we did everything we wanted to out of possession – we were compact, we were aggressive when we needed to be, but we need to know when we have to speed the game up and win the ball back.

"We also need to give ourselves a little bit more trust that we’ve got good players and when we play our shape, and play it well, that we can cause teams problems."

Meritan Shabani, who was signed on deadline day from Bayern Munich, made his debut, as did defender Raphael Nya – signed from Paris Saint Germain – and Chinese midfielder Tsun Dai.

Connolly scored in the 74th minute, and then the 76th.

"There are enough positives to take from the game, especially considering we’ve trained together as a team of 11 players once – and that was on Sunday," added Edwards.

“Shabani came in for the first time on Sunday, Taylor Perry and Dion Sanderson have been with the first-team throughout pre-season and trained with us for the first time on Sunday, and both of them have only played 30 minutes of football this pre-season.

“There are a few lads who we’ve got to build back in, and we’ll build more of an understanding the more we get to train together, and the more players are in the building.

“There are enough positives to take, obviously disappointing to lose 2-0 as we all hate losing, but I have to look at the performance first and foremost, and there were some good individual performances, and collectively at times we looked very good.

“We’ve got to recover now, build again and assess it during the week before a really tough game with Everton on Sunday."