Nuno Espirito Santo has cooled the discussions about a possible Champions League place after his side defeated Norwich 2-1 on Saturday.
With Wolves slipping back into sixth over the weekend, they are now just five points off Chelsea who occupy the last of the Champions League spaces.
Considering that the club have stepped up another level this year and are in the final 32 of the Europa League, you can understand why there is a bit of hype being built around this team.
Nevertheless, Nuno’s mantra of taking one game at a time is not being compromised upon, as he suggested to the press that they will not be getting ahead of themselves.
When asked by the Express and Star whether or not a Champions League finish is on his mind, he replied: “No. Never. We don’t compete for the table. We compete to perform, we judge ourselves on how we do things.
“On Saturday, in the first half we did very bad, and in the second half we did very good. This is the standard. It’s game by game.
“It’s always the same. We don’t look at the table, and we stay humble. No matter what success you have, you have to stay humble and keep working, keep improving.
“Then, things will naturally come where you want because you’ve prepared yourself well to compete.”
The philosophy that Nuno’s side has had of always going match by match has had a huge amount of success for them so far, so you really can’t blame the Portuguese manager for not discussing the potential of qualifying for the Champions League.
Is a top four finish a realistic target?
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It can be quite easy to forget that the club was written off by many at the beginning of the season and they are still performing above their expectations. Martin Laurence of WhoScored wrote as recently as October 24 about how they are struggling to compete on both fronts, yet since then they have gone from strength to strength in both of their domestic and European campaigns.
So given that they have gone from being unable to cope with the demands to being asked whether or not they will qualify for the world’s biggest club competition in just a space of two months, that is proof that you can’t really predict what is going to happen in the future with football.
Therefore, doing so could at best be futile or at worst counterproductive, as he will then be accountable for potentially asking too much of his players, as they are still doing fantastic jobs as it is.
