Wolverhampton Wanderers are set to head to Old Trafford to face Manchester United on Monday (January 3, 5.30pm kick-off). However, Wolves boss Bruno Lage has admitted he cannot say how ready his players will be for the contest.
Bruno Lage said “After 10 days without playing, in your mind, to be ready to play is difficult. I was talking with a player and I asked ‘are you ready to play?’ He said: ‘I really don’t know’. After 10 days without playing and training you are slow to take the right decisions. If you take one more second to decide then the other team come and press. They need to continue to train and adapt as soon as possible. They are coming (back), that is why the next days will be important to understand which players are fit to play. There is nothing new but now we need to understand if the players have time to recover and are fit to play. We have two more days to understand which players are fit and ready to play this important game.”
Although the Portuguese boss claimed there aren’t many Covid cases within the squad, the size of the squad does not help when there are also a number of injuries. Jonny (knee), Pedro Neto (knee), Hwang Hee-Chan (hamstring), Yerson Mosquera (hamstring) and Willy Boly (calf) all remain unavailable while Rayan Ait-Nouri continues battling a groin problem.
Bruno Lage added: “We don’t have many cases but we have a small squad, (if) four or five players (have Covid) and then afterwards we don’t have players to play.”
Wolves were also forced to close their training ground for two days after their Boxing Day fixture with Watford was postponed.
Bruno Lage said “We closed on the 26th and 27th, some guys have symptoms, some guys not. They try to do little things but they still cannot do too much. We didn’t play against Watford because of Covid at Watford and afterwards (against Arsenal) it was because of us. We cannot blame anyone, we have to play our game because these kind of things can happen.”
Lage’s side have been battling against a coronavirus outbreak in the squad which forced the postponement of Tuesday’s trip to Arsenal. Wolves will now return to action for the first time since drawing 0-0 with Chelsea at Molineux on December 19.
