Gary O’Neil name-drops Aston Villa and Newcastle United in Wolves rant

Wolverhampton Wanderers manager Gary O’Neil feels aggrieved by his side’s lack of squad depth, making it extra tricky to be consistently competitive in the Premier League. Saturday’s 2-0 defeat to Arsenal made the problem abundantly clear as Wolves named five teenagers on the bench, while Tawanda Chirewa made his first league start.

O’Neil accepts Wanderers’ injury list isn’t as significant as that of other top-flight clubs but wants the focus to be on the season’s starting numbers instead. The Old Gold couldn’t rectify the issue with monetary signings in the winter as the club were walking a tightrope with the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules.

Aston Villa and Newcastle United were mentioned by O’Neil as examples of teams in a stronger position, despite having more players on the injury table.

“I haven’t checked but I can’t imagine there’s another team in the country as short as we are at the moment, I think 10 senior outfield players were available to play 90 minutes today. It’s a tough situation,” O’Neil said after Wolves’ loss to Arsenal.

“If you look at the number of injuries, it’s probably not in excess of some of the other clubs - if you look at Newcastle and Aston Villa, they’ve had quite a few missing. But their start point is probably 25 or 26 players and ours is 19. Take seven away from 19 and it gets pretty short pretty quickly,” O’Neil said.

But there were plenty of positives from Saturday’s loss as Wolves dug in for a determined performance. Although 2-0 in the end, the Old Gold probably deserved to hold on to just a one-goal deficit. The Molineux faithful played a key role in getting behind the players, displaying an appreciation for their unrelenting efforts.

“You can see from the crowd they were extremely proud of what the lads were able to achieve. It would be easy for them to feel a bit down because deep down, like me, we want all of our best players available.

“They were far better than I could ask for and expect. We want to be back where we were before Coventry, with people talking about Europe and FA Cup runs. But that’s not the situation we’re in and we need to make the best of what we have now. The fans definitely did that. I thought they were incredible,” O’Neil concluded with a smile.