Gary O'Neil's stark warning ahead of Wolves' league climax
Gary O'Neil has warned Wolves will have a difficult Premier League run-in if they cannot get some key players back from injury.
Wolves have Pedro Neto, Matheus Cunha, Hwang Hee-chan, Jean-Ricner Bellegarde and Craig Dawson all sidelined, with Cunha the most likely to return to the squad to face Villa in two weeks' time.
As a result, Wolves' attacking options are limited and after losing late in the FA Cup to Coventry, O'Neil has warned his side have a mountain to climb in the remaining Premier League games this season.
He said: "Lifting the players will be fine. They always respond and they will respond.
"But Premier League games, with where we are at this moment, will be really, really difficult.
"We're going to go to Aston Villa and hopefully Cunha's back, but if we are as we are (against Coventry), we'll go there with only Pablo Sarabia as a senior attacking player.
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"Aston Villa will have Watkins, Diaby, Bailey, Ramsey, Zaniolo, Duran. Premier League games will be really tough, that's why I spoke so highly of the Fulham win.
"But we get to see the young lads. We get to see Nathan Fraser for another hour and Leon Chiwome come off the bench. Some of the other young lads were close to coming on.
"It's where we are and we need to understand it, but we don't accept it and just stop, we keep going and keep pushing.
"We'll try to add to our already good total of 41 points and then we have a three-game week, which will be a test for the group as well.
"Not only do we have players missing, but the fact it's such a small group means they've done a lot already this season and there's not been a lot of rotation.
"The break will do them good and hopefully they don't have to play too much while they're away on international duty.
"We'll get them back together and go and attack the rest of the Premier League games like we have done."
When asked if he is frustrated over his small squad and the unfortunate attacking injuries they have suffered, O'Neil added: "We can continue to punch above expectation, but sometimes where you are catches up with you.
"Did I expect it to be the 97th minute, 2-1 up in the FA Cup quarter-final? No, I didn't.
"The first thing I will do is look at me and what I've done. We moved a lot of things around to try to come up with a team and then 1-0 down introduced Rayan higher up the pitch and Hugo joining in from lower.
"We started Mario higher, which is a solution, but then missed him lower. We've taken Toti off now and now we're 2-1 up, and it would be really good to put a defender on to help us see it out, but there isn't one.
"I played a part in helping us get back to 2-1, but also some of that help is part of the reason why we ended up losing 3-2.
"I'll have a good look at myself. My job was to win and I failed, so I'll take it as hard as anyone."
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