Wolves are short of players as they begin pre-season training

Nuno Espirito Santo held his first training session with his group, which is vastly reduced because of international call-ups, yesterday evening.

That was after they underwent a round of Covid-19 testing at the training base on Tuesday.

The onus is now on being as ready as possible for the new Premier League campaign getting under way at Sheffield United a week on Monday.

Preparations for the clash with the Blades have been hampered by eight stars being selected for duty by their countries.

Rui Patricio, Joao Moutinho, Ruben Neves and Diogo Jota are all away with Portugal, while Pedro Neto and Ruben Vinagre are with Portugal Under-21s.

Leander Dendoncker, as usual, is part of the Belgium squad, while skipper Conor Coady has been awarded a long-awaited England call-up for the Nations League games against Iceland and Denmark.

Among the players being put through their paces at Compton are star striker Raul Jimenez, key centre-half Willy Boly, fellow stopper Romain Saiss and £17million January signing Daniel Podence.

Second-choice goalkeeper John Ruddy, Max Kilman and Oskar Buur are some of the other first-teamers there at the moment, while teenage defender Christian Marques is one of the youngsters involved.

Those on international duty are due to return towards the end of next week, a matter of days before 2020/21 begins at Bramall Lane. Due to that, Wolves are not expected to play any friendlies before the season starts, with Nuno’s charges aiming to build on-back-to-back seventh-placed finishes in the top flight.