Nottingham Forest v Wolves: Gary O'Neil may have to mix it up after tricky start

But Wolves have been caught out in the early fixtures, with several defensive errors leading to goals.

The club’s struggles in the transfer window has led to them losing out on several centre-back and winger targets and ahead of Wolves’ trip to Forest on Saturday, O’Neil admits he may have to adapt the style to suit the players he has available.

“We’ll be trying hard and be active right until the end of the window,” O’Neil said. “We had a plan in pre-season, especially when we knew we were losing Max (Kilman) and we had a fair idea that we might lose Pedro.

“The plan at the start, we had some key targets that we thought we could do that would fit well into the way we wanted to play. As the window has progressed, without those players arriving maybe the way we play doesn’t suit the group quite as well as I thought it would at this moment.

“Maybe I need to be a little bit adaptable with how we do things, depending on who arrives and who doesn’t.

“It’s a bit of a change of tact from trying to recruit people into a certain way of doing things, whereas now it’s probably working the other way around and we’re working hard to see who we can get and I find a structure and system that fits what we end up with after Friday.

“We are trying. We still have some restrictions in place that means we can’t do what other clubs can do and some players we liked have been snapped up by other clubs and we weren’t able to match offers.”

A change in style does not necessarily mean a switch to a back five so soon, but the signs are there.

Yerson Mosquera was not involved against Burnley in the Carabao Cup, implying he will play, while Craig Dawson came off after an hour with O’Neil admitting it was ‘with a view to the weekend’.

With physical striker Chris Wood to come up against, playing Dawson feels like the obvious solution to the threat he poses.

Forest also have other threats, however, in former player Morgan Gibbs-White, who will undoubtedly earn plenty of attention from the travelling supporters.

“Morgan Gibbs-White is an excellent player, fantastic, a big talent,” O’Neil added. “He’s incredible out of possession and works his socks off.

“He’s one of their key players.

“They are an interesting team who are fairly direct at times, going into Chris Wood quite a lot.

“It will be a tough game. We know how tough the start of the season is with Newcastle, Villa and Liverpool to follow Forest away.

“It’s probably the toughest run of fixtures of anyone in the league but the game at the weekend gives us another opportunity to try put our first set of points on the board.”