Following the announcement of Jean-Ricner Bellegarde’s muscular injury, Wolves head coach Gary O’Neil has confessed that he is concerned about the lack of squad depth at his disposal.
On Saturday afternoon, O’Neil made his comeback to AFC Bournemouth with a 2-1 victory. After Matheus Cunha cancelled out Dominic Solanke’s opener, Sasa Kalajdzic came off the substitute to score the game-winning goal, precisely as he did at Everton in August.
O’Neil will be relieved to win after missing Nelson Semedo and Mario Lemina due to suspension. There was also no sign of Bellegarde, despite his return from his own suspension.
The midfielder suffered a “small muscle injury” earlier in the week, according to reports. In his post-match press conference, Wolves manager Paul Lambert revealed that the Black Country’s squad depth will be a priority in the January transfer window.
“To be honest, I’m concerned about squad depth,” the 40-year-old admitted. “Matt Doherty really shouldn’t have played today.” I believed he was out when he hurt his groin yesterday.
“We’d have missed Doc (Doherty), Nelson (Semedo), Mario (Lemina), and Jean-Ricner Bellegarde, who has a minor muscle injury.” I was concerned that getting to this point without four major players would be difficult.
“We do have a small squad at this moment and we’ll hopefully look to address a couple areas in January.”
Despite his side falling from behind to defeat his former employers, O’Neil heaped admiration on his players for surviving a difficult summer in comparison to their Premier League opponents.
“Sasa (Kalajdzic) was fantastic when he came on.” He now has two goals from the bench. Pablo (Sarabia) made an impression, and Tommy Doyle was outstanding.
I was able to shift (Matheus) Cunha and Channy (Hwang Hee-chan) little. Cunha was a nine, so I replaced him with Channy.
“We have some talent; we just need to keep the boys fit because we don’t have a deep squad.”
“I look at Bournemouth’s squad now and the money they spent in the summer and the amount of depth they have now. Look at the amount of wingers they can bring on.
“Trying to pick which winger they’re going to play is difficult, whereas at our place, people that can play wide are pretty much Channy and Pedro.
“There’s a bit of a difference depth-wise with the squad. We had a different summer to them and managed to make an £80million profit while they spent over £100million.
“But I have an incredible group. They’re unbelievably tight and understand what I expect of them. They’ve given me everything so far.”
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