Gary O'Neil aiming to ease Wolves pressure ahead of basement battles
Gary O’Neil wants to ease the pressure on his Wolves side by insisting their upcoming back-to-back Molineux clashes are not ‘must wins’.
Wolves were buoyed by their late comeback at Brighton, earning them their second point of the campaign.
But they are still without a win this season after nine games and now face two home clashes with fellow strugglers Crystal Palace and Southampton.
To get the season back on track and secure O’Neil’s position Wolves will need to finally find three points, but the head coach is cutting out the outside noise.
“I know there will be a lot made of the next games, but they’re not must wins,” O’Neil said.
“Crystal Palace are good. They spent £30million on a striker from Arsenal and Eze is pretty good! We need to be ready in every game and we want to win.
“Southampton will also be tough, they keep the ball forever and have a real set way of playing.
“There will be challenges in every game because that’s the level of the Premier League, but we’ll keep going.
“The lads will never stop. We’ll stand up, we’ll keep going and we’ll be fine.
“The fans have stuck with us and that speaks volumes for the club.
“The one thing I guarantee we won’t come up short on is fight, passion, togetherness and effort.
“If we come up short on quality sometimes, we work hard to make sure that doesn’t happen, but we definitely won’t come up short on anything else.”
Wolves were 2-0 down at Brighton in the 85th minute before finding two late goals after taking advantage of an improved second-half performance.
Alongside the Palace and Southampton games, after the international break Wolves also have a run of favourable fixtures up until Christmas.
As they search for their first win, O’Neil says the answers are already within the group.
“There are some reasons around why the start has been as difficult as it has,” O’Neil said.
“That doesn’t mean that we’re pleased with where we are, of course, but we do know that we can fix it, me and the group.
“We know I have 100 per cent faith in the group, 100 per cent faith in myself, the club, the fans, all of us together.
“There’s going to be some tough situations and we’re going to stand there together, everyone, the fans, Matt Hobbs, the subs, everyone in it together, ready to scrap, ready to fight.”
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