Heady target set for Wolves as Bruno Lage tells his players: ‘No one can relax’
Bruno Lage is challenging his Wolves players to upset the Premier League establishment and secure a top-six finish this season – and wants to see their hunger on display in Thursday’s clash with Arsenal.
The race for the Premier League title looks to be a closed shop this season with Manchester City flexing their muscles at the top. Behind them, the race to finish in the top four looks far more wide open. Indeed, many observers are suggesting a four-way fight for fourth between West Ham, Manchester United, Arsenal and Tottenham.
However, pundit Paul Merson claims Lage’s side are very much in contention and must be considered ‘dark horses’.
While Lage is not thinking about the Champions League, he does want Wolves to finish in the top six. To that end, he is challenging his players to stay on their toes and fight for every point possible this season.
Wolves have already won at Old Trafford this season. And they can take another big scalp on Thursday night when fellow European hopefuls Arsenal visit Molineux.
And ahead of the game, Lage says he has asked his players if they want to bask in the relative comfort of the 34 points they have collected so far. Or, with 17 games remaining, they have loftier ambitions.
Wolves players match coach’s ambition
Now the coach has revealed that their response was just the sort of answer he was hoping for.
He said: “Now when you come to a moment where we are comfortable 34 points, that’s where the character and ambition of each one comes in, or you feel comfortable and it’s okay, ‘This is enough for me’.
“Or you can go, continue to work hard and go onto the pitch with that mentality to win more games for us.
“That’s my ambition, that’s my character, they are the things I want to transmit to my players, to my team. They need to go into the games and they need to do their best.
“After, in the end, we will see what happens, but if I saw after the games the team has the personality to have the ball or when we don’t have the ball, we fight for it and we continue to be strong and compact, good things will come to us.
“Look, I really haven’t changed anything in my behaviour. I don’t want anyone to feel relaxed, I want everyone feeling the same way. We have a lot of things to do until the end of the season.”
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Lage wants Wolves to showcase their ambition
Wolves have won four of their last five league games but will run out against the Gunners on the back of a disappointing 1-0 FA Cup fourth round defeat by Norwich.
However Lage, who will welcome back Romain Saiss from Africa Cup of Nations duty, Trincao from Covid-19 and will make late checks on Hwang Hee-chan and long-term absentee Jonny, is not content for his side to rest on their laurels.
He said: “What the team did in December and January gives us that ambition to look up, so that’s what I want, to have my team have character, my players have character, that we have good things to conquer in the last three months.
“It’s an important period for us and what I want is to be ready and to take every time the best decisions in every game.
“We’ll go into tomorrow with, I believe, the ambition and the character we should have to play like we have played in the last months.”
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