GARY O’NEIL: FULHAM V WOLVES PRESS CONFERENCE

Any injury update for us?

A few things to check on, but I’m hopeful that we’ll be okay. I think, yes, I’m confident we’ll be able to name a strong team tomorrow. So, a couple of checks, and I don’t want to give too much away today, but I’m hopeful that we’ll be fine.

I appreciate you don’t want to give too much away, but how’s Santi Bueno, especially since he had to withdraw from.international duty?

Yes, Santi’s done some work on the grass, he’ll travel with us, and we’re hopeful that he can make it.

That’s good news. Looking ahead to Fulham, how do you assess where they are now, especially compared to when you met them at Craven Cottage last season, around the same time this season?

Yes, I think they’ve made good progress.

I think they had a very good summer. I like the signings they made; I thought they recruited very well. I’m a big fan of Marco Silva. I think he’s an excellent coach. He hasn’t had a lot of time there, but he’s used it well. You can see there’s a good understanding and a solid style in what they do, and the players they recruit fit well into their system.

So, it’s been an impressive transition for them. I was involved at Bournemouth when we played them in the Championship, and since then they’ve continued to grow and strengthen. As with all Premier League games, this will be another real test for us

In the summer, you mentioned the business they did; they lost Schalke to India, but they brought in players like Joachim Andersen and Smith Rowe. You lost some big players in the summer. Do you hope in the future you’ll be able to find replacements like that and build towards that with the club?

Yes, I think we are.

Wolves is a fantastic club, a big club, but we’re still in the process of stabilising. When I came in, there was a lot to do to try and stabilise, and after that comes the progression. We’re not quite at that point yet, and we’re still in a phase where we’re trying to stabilise and ensure we’re in a good spot week to week.

Discussions around the club’s progression and future goals will come later. But for now, especially with the results we’ve had at the start of the season, the focus is on the short term and making sure we can be competitive and pick up enough points. Hopefully, in the future, we can progress the club into one that, of course, understands that if we recruit well and sign good young players, turning them into top players, there’s a chance they might leave.

But when they do, can we recruit players who fit right into their positions, ready to play in the Premier League week in, week out? That’s where we hope to get to.

I want to ask you about one player in particular, Andre, who went away with Brazil. How’s he looking? He’s been on the bench for the last three games. What does he need to do to break into the first team again?

Yes, he’s working very hard.

I think the central midfield area is one of our strongest. I was very impressed with him in his first few appearances. The job against Manchester City perhaps didn’t suit him. He lost his spot at half-time, and since then we’ve been unbeaten. We had a good display against Manchester City, then went to Brighton, did well, and played against Crystal Palace and Southampton. So, it’s just one of those moments for him. He’s still working hard, showing his quality, and adapting.

We’ve talked to him about the difference in football, the speed of the game, and how it’s played. It’s a completely different game from what he’s used to. But he’s going to be important for us, and we’ll use him sooner rather than later. He’ll have a massive impact on the team.

If you don’t mind me asking, Gary, big news in the Prem this week with Pep Guardiola signing a new contract with Man City. Your reaction to that news, and what interactions have you had with him? Have you had a chance to talk about football, his philosophy?

I’ve had a couple of decent chats with him. He’s been kind enough to invite me up. I haven’t been able to get there yet, but after a couple of games against them, he’s always been very open. At some point, when I have time, I’ll pop up for the coffee he offered and see how he’s gone through his journey.

It’s excellent news for the Premier League that the best manager around, and potentially the best ever, is still in our league. Not so good for other managers who have to face him and his team every week. I think everyone is pleased he remains.

As young, aspiring coaches, you always want to go up against the best, and Pep is undoubtedly one of them. You look forward to those weeks where you test yourself against the best.

Just finally on that point, what makes him the best? What has made him so good?

I think he’s had a global impact on how the game is played.

I’m not sure how accurate my thoughts are, but it seemed to change from how the game was played in England to how it’s played now around his time at Barcelona. There was a lot made of what they were doing, and it seemed to move over here quickly. Others may be equally responsible, but Pep stands out in my mind for moving the game to where it is now.

He’s obviously been very successful at every club he’s been at. An impressive career, and he continues it at one of the biggest clubs around.

As you mentioned, unbeaten in three, and there was that excellent performance against Manchester City before that. The Brentford game that preceded it—how has that been the turning point, and has the work you’ve done since propelled you into this momentum?

It’s been an interesting season for us so far. Not just the results, but the performances were promising at the start. I know you don’t want to keep hearing that since we weren’t picking up enough points, but we faced tough opposition.

We took Liverpool to the wire and should have taken something off Newcastle. We were the better side against Villa for a long time. There were some good performances in there. For some reason, when we arrived at Brentford, we fell well below our level. In that first game outside, people would have thought, “Okay, you’re not playing one of the big teams now; let’s see.”

We fell below the level and gave ourselves no chance of taking anything from that game. A lot of work went into figuring out what we needed to do to give ourselves a better chance of taking points. We’ve worked on that over the last few weeks, and so far, points-wise, it’s helped us. I think there’s still room for improvement. This will be a tough test. Fulham is one of the informed sides, especially at Craven Cottage, and they are always a tough challenge.

So we need to be excellent. But we’re in a decent moment, as strange as that sounds, considering where we are in the league. Five points from three Premier League games is solid, especially with the pressure on those two home games before the international break.

To take  points from them was big. We’ll try to carry some of that momentum into the next one.

Do you think you’ve got increased resilience now?

I thought it was the first clean sheet in a long time against Southampton. The team seems to have shown in the last few weeks that even after disappointments, they can bounce back.

Yes, we need to find the right blend where we look like scoring goals. Since I’ve been here, the club has struggled for years to score goals. They were one of the lowest scorers in the league for a long time. We always look like scoring now. Not many games where we don’t manage to score.

It’s about finding the right balance between that and being solid. We don’t want to take away from being an attacking team. We definitely want to keep that, as some of our best moments come from Matheus Cunha’s freedom and getting players forward.

But we do need to be solid. We suffered a big blow in defence with Yerson, who was a big hope for us this year. We knew Max Killman would leave a gap, but Yerson coming back from his loan felt like it would help fill that.

Then to lose him for the season may have forced us to rethink more than we expected to cope with our challenges. We’re still working hard to address all these issues.

Regarding your goalkeeping position, with Sam back on the bench for the last game, is that something you analyse and discuss with the group every week?

Yes, I think so, with every position really, whenever we pick the team. Some are straightforward. Some have played really well the week before, so you write their names down without much discussion. But there are discussions around other places.

Sometimes that’s the goalkeeper. I’ve been pleased with Jose. His response to Sam’s arrival and being left out for a few weeks has been excellent. Hopefully that can continue.

Just finally, it’s been snowing here, but it’s the international break. You’re looking quite healthy with a tan. Did you manage to have a bit of time off and get some sun?

Yes, it was an intense spell. The prep for Crystal Palace and Southampton was crucial. A lot of hard work went into making sure we were set for those. We managed to give some players a break. I still worked but found somewhere warm to work for a few days, which was nice.

But I don’t really take too many days off until May. I enjoy watching football and working on improving the group. It was nice to give the lads a little break. Some were away on international duty, of course. But those who stayed have played a lot of minutes. Joao Gomes and Matheus have been mainstays in the team and played many 90 minutes.

So it was good to refresh them. Hopefully we can bring some of that freshness to Craven Cottage tomorrow and cause them some problems. 

When you’re picking between goalkeepers, is it like other positions where you’re looking for players to do a specific role? Or are you just looking for the guy who’s going to make the most saves? Are you asking different things from…?

No, honestly, it’s less so with the goalkeeper. For outfield positions, you look at who suits the game best. But it’s less the case with the goalkeeper.

Generally, you choose who is in better form or who helps the group best. That’s how it’s usually done. There may be extreme cases where we think one keeper is better for a specific game. But I don’t want to keep flipping the goalkeeper. If Jose is strong from crosses, but we play a team that crosses a lot, there could be an argument for choosing him. Sam might be slightly better with his feet.

If we expect to have a lot of the ball, we could choose Sam. But it’s too extreme to keep switching goalkeepers because of small differences in their strengths. Understood.

Now that you’ve had a clean sheet and some good results, have you studied what happened in the first part of the season? Were there structural reasons for conceding so many goals, or were many down to mistakes?

We made a lot of errors. We did make a lot of errors. A few were due to team shape letting us down.

But there was a lot of avoidable goals. Think of the Crystal Palace goals that came out of nowhere. Jose was about to catch it, and next minute, it’s in the goal. There were a few like that. The Chelsea game was similar, really, where a couple of individual mistakes led to goals.

But we need to work on all of that. It’s not something we can ignore just because the structure was fine. We’ve worked hard to improve how well the structure can limit mistakes. Players make mistakes for a reason, so we analyse everything to find the right balance. We aim to provide protection against mistakes to avoid catastrophic outcomes. Lots of work has gone into this.

Hopefully, we’re starting to see more solid performances. We shouldn’t have conceded two goals against Crystal Palace. And against Southampton, we didn’t look like conceding at all; Jose didn’t have a shot to save, which was pleasing because we built the week on that. The week was focused on ensuring we stopped Southampton from scoring, and we figured we could find a way to create problems with Mateus and Jorgen.

So the Southampton match was a pleasing one for us. Is that the key to deciding this season? Whether you improve defensively or not? You mentioned earlier that scoring goals isn’t a problem right now. Yes, we need to find the right balance between scoring and protecting the goal. Of course, we need both, which is typical for any team.

So is it impossible to achieve both? No, it isn’t. We need to help the boys understand how to defend better. That’s the focus. The front players also need to protect them better. So, the whole team needs to be better out of possession. That’s a big focus.

You may hear me talk about Mateus often because he’s unbelievably talented and can win us games alone. But he wants me to be tough on him and improve him out of possession. I work with him on that every single day. The same goes for all our players. We have some truly talented players, but we need to work hard to be a good team without the ball.

It’s not easy for Premier League teams to test you, so we need to be a well-organised, hard-working unit when we don’t have the ball. We’re working hard on that right now. Very quickly, I’ve been asked about Pedro Lima, who’s been training with the under-21s a few times. Yes, he’s missed a few weeks, hasn’t he? I think he’s about two to three weeks in now.

He rolled his ankle and came off after 70 minutes, which was disappointing for him. I can’t remember against whom it was. He was meant to be subbed off after 75 but rolled his ankle at 70. He hasn’t trained for a while, but I think he’s nearing a return.