Wolves manager, Gary O’Neil has praised his players for their “incredible” win over Chelsea.
Second-half goals from Mario Lemina and Matt Doherty saw Wolves stun Chelsea in a festive Xmas Eve win at Molineux, despite Christopher Nkunku’s late consolatory goal for the visitors.
O’Neil however felt that his team were “sloppy” in the first half despite making a tweak midway through the opening 45 minutes to allow extra patience on the ball.
Explaining his reason behind the tweak, O’Neil commented: “I wanted the lads to be a bit calmer with the ball, and have slightly better options, because we got caught trying to attack too quickly and we needed to find moments where we kept the ball and make good decisions.
“It’s part of the process that we’re in. Incredible win with what we had available to us – injuries and three young lads on the bench against a team and squad the size of Chelsea, with what they had available to throw on late on.
“For the lads managed to dig in, fight and find a way to beat a talented Chelsea group is an incredible effort.”
The win marked an improvement on last weekend’s loss at West Ham which left nobody feeling “happy”, with the mood further dampened by illnesses for Jean-Ricner Bellegarde which ruled him out of the “tough” match, whilst Craig Dawson started despite not feeling 100% well.
O’Neil consequently was pleased with the team’s effort as he continued: “To get every last bit out of everybody available, and for them to dig in and be together, and not scrap a win but to be comfortable for most of it, is huge credit to the group. I’ll enjoy Christmas Day tomorrow after that.
“It was a tough day for a group which is small, but with what we had out there, I knew if we got to our maximum level, especially here with the fans behind us, we could hopefully cause Chelsea some problems. First half we turned over the ball a bit too much, but apart from that I thought we were very good.”