O'Neil on Wolves incredible 2-1 win

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00:00 "Result, excellent. To come to Tottenham and win is not easy. Fantastic result for us.

00:08 Performance-wise, we deserved the victory. I thought the chances created were excellent.

00:14 We were able to counter-attack well, which we know we're going to be able to do. And

00:19 some detail of how we counter-attacked Tottenham and why we were able to get in some good situations.

00:24 But also, when Tottenham pressed us, the lads being able to find real good solutions in

00:30 the structure to cause them problems in possession as well as just counter.

00:34 And then we knew we would be able to press aggressively sometimes and we would have to

00:37 be in a real compact low block and try and make the spaces as small as possible for them

00:42 in others. If they were the four key parts to the game plan, I thought we were near enough

00:48 perfect in all of them today. So credit to the group."

00:51 How did you feel about the game plan?

00:58 "I knew Zidane would be massive to us today, the way I saw the game going and what I thought

01:04 we'd need from the game plan. He suffered a kick on his foot on Wednesday in training,

01:09 kicked the bottom of someone's boot and it swoll up quite bad. So we were worried that

01:14 we were not going to have him back in time. I knew that would be a huge blow because today's

01:19 game was going to suit him. We were going to be without the ball for spells but we were

01:23 going to try and make it compact and we knew he'd be able to press people and regain the

01:26 ball like he did. I thought he was excellent at that. I'm very keen to still try and improve

01:33 what he is with the ball. He knows that. We work very hard on it with him. His understanding

01:38 with the ball and how clean he is with it sometimes. His passes. We had to give him

01:44 some criticism just to keep him grounded. We had a fantastic opportunity in the first

01:47 half to counter-attack and I think he misses Pedro and it goes off for a throw-in. So those

01:52 moments I want for him more than just for the team. For him to be perfect at as well

01:57 as what he was able to do today without the ball and obviously two fantastic goals. For

02:02 a 21-year-old to come away to Tottenham and produce that performance is extremely impressive.

02:13 Yesterday morning I was worried he'd missed training on Friday but he was fine. I was

02:19 just a bit worried he might feel it during training but he got through it fine. He told

02:23 me he was happy enough with how it felt. As I said he was important to the game plan so

02:28 I was desperate to have him involved today.

02:31 Is Xhau aware of the Brazil manager being here?

02:59 No, no. I was desperately looking forward to seeing all three of them back together.

03:16 And we will, we definitely will. Mateus Cunha, real good news on him. He's had a good week,

03:22 he's been in the gym already doing some work on his hamstring. So obviously there'll be

03:27 no rushing for him but he's really keen to push and get back and help his team as quickly

03:32 as possible. Losing Pedro earlier in the season I think it was key for the team to, because

03:39 he was in such good form at that moment, Pedro. I think we maybe lost the first game without

03:44 him did we at Sheffield United? And then we were able to put a real big victory on the

03:48 board quickly.

03:49 I think today the lads losing Mateus Cunha and how big he's been for us because it is

03:53 a massive blow for us to lose him with the form he's been in. For us to come away and

03:57 win without Mateus shows the boys that we can still do this as a team, we can stick

04:03 together, we can still create chances. So I miss Mateus a lot today. I miss seeing what

04:09 he does and what he gives to the team. But I also enjoyed watching the team fight and

04:13 scrap and produce moments of quality without him.

04:16 Is that a result of a terrible goal?

04:28 So similar to the Manchester United goal when we were at 3-0 and we let them throw it into

04:32 an attacking player. Crazy really to do it once and we've repeated it again today. So

04:38 something as always, something we know we need to improve. And then once they throw

04:44 it into an attacking player, there's chances of ricochets or in a Man United game there

04:48 was a chance of the attacking player doing something brilliant. Today it was ricochets

04:53 and a couple of missed tackles and all of a sudden it's in your goal. So we can't

04:58 afford to give goals away like that.

05:00 But yeah, to give Tottenham that lift because we were in complete control really of the

05:06 first half. I know they had possession but we created a far better chance. My talk at

05:10 half-time was all about keep pushing forward and creating more chances and scoring more

05:14 goals. To give the place such a lift so quickly was obviously very disappointing. But then

05:22 as I speak about this with the boys a lot, you will be tested today at some point. There

05:26 will be a setback, there will be a refereeing decision, someone will score against us, there

05:30 will be something you need to dig in and get together on. I'm delighted they managed to

05:35 respond in the way they did and created maybe three or four really good chances after that.

05:39 What is the potential of the new coach?

05:59 I think his strengths are incredibly strong. Obviously his athleticism and his pace is

06:05 excellent. His quality on the ball when he's dribbling or when he's trying to find a pass

06:09 at the end of it is excellent. I'm still working really hard on improving certain bits of him

06:15 that I think he needs to improve in my opinion. He knows that, we've spoken about it already

06:21 about how much he can do for the team and out of possession stuff and still some understanding

06:26 with the ball. So he knows that we want to improve him. I think it would be really lazy

06:32 of me to just say he's fantastic, let's just let him get on with it and we'll see how well

06:38 he does. I still want to push him and try and get him as close to perfect as a wide

06:41 player as we can. I've been asked a few times this week about the summer already and I'm

06:48 not interested in discussing Pedro Neto leaving the football club. He's a fantastic player

06:52 that we spent a lot of money on, that we worked very hard on. As far as I'm concerned, we

06:58 don't want to lose our best players. We have a long way to go yet this season and hopefully

07:03 he stays with us and we can keep pushing towards the top half of the table.

07:07 Will you be playing in the league table?

07:10 I haven't seen the league table tonight but I don't really set goals in league table positions,

07:15 especially with a group that I didn't know when I joined. Most of the talk at that point

07:21 was around relegation. To switch talk from relegation to Europe is a big jump. The lads

07:29 know what I think we should be looking to achieve this year, which is just trying to

07:33 be perfect in every game. Whether it be at home where teams let us have the ball like

07:38 Brentford which we haven't been able to crack yet, or whether it be away from home where

07:42 we have to dig in. I want us to be able to do all of it every week and find a level of

07:47 consistency. The next bit is making sure we're better in some games at home when we have

07:53 the ball. Wherever that takes us in the league, it will take us. I'll keep pushing them to

08:00 the final whistle at Anfield at the end of May. Hopefully beyond that if we're able to

08:05 keep a cut run going.

08:06 How quickly were you able to impact the group?

08:19 I'd probably say I was slightly surprised in how quickly we were able to impact the

08:24 group. Having worked with them it's not a surprise that they keep surprising other people.

08:29 To me it's their togetherness and their willingness to work. You can see out there everyone's

08:34 out on their feet at the end. They're giving absolutely everything for the club, for myself,

08:39 for each other, which always gives us a chance. But we do have some real quality as well.

08:44 The squad is small as we've spoken about, mainly down to financial reasons. The fact

08:52 that it is small does allow us to have some really good players in there within the financial

08:57 structure. We have some fantastic players available to us. It's key that we work hard

09:01 to keep them fit because we don't have real depth. But we'll keep pushing. We can't get

09:07 too unlucky with too many other serious injuries to top players. But if we're fortunate and

09:14 things go our way and we're able to keep pushing then we'll see how far up the table we can

09:19 finish.

09:20 Will you be excited about the fans dreaming of you?

09:25 I love the fans dreaming. One of my favourite parts of the job really is that I'm not allowed

09:32 to get carried away and think about things that might happen. I love them being able

09:37 to think about it. If we were on 22 points right now they'd be worried about how we get

09:43 our next win and are we going to stay up. The fact that we've got to 35 already they

09:48 can talk about a title charge for all I care. I'm delighted that they're enjoying themselves

09:52 and got to share another fantastic moment with them today which is really special. You

09:58 can see the connection between the players and the fans. We just need to keep trying

10:02 to push it and improve everything.

10:12 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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