News

Nuno reflects on a ‘tough’ qualification campaign and reveals how they tackled the group – report

|

With Wolves finishing their Europa League group stage in style, Nuno Espirito Santo has come out and reflected on this stage of the campaign.

Wanderers rounded off an impressive group stage by battering Besiktas 4-0 last night at Molineux, meaning that they go through the group as runners-up on 13 points.

Overall they managed to win four, draw one, and lose one, which they must be pretty happy with, even if they had a slightly favourable group.

Highlights of the group might have to be their success away from home. Willy Boly’s last-minute winner in Istanbul was a huge goal for them at the time after they had lost their opener at home to Braga and gave that important confidence boost to know that they could do it on the European stage – so that would be the highlight from my perspective.

Speaking to the club website after the game, Nuno said: “It was a tough competition. After the first game at home, when we didn’t play good, it went quite well. I think we progressed through the competition and at the end we performed well.

“We didn’t fight for one place, we fight game by game. It was enough to take us to the knockout stage and we are delighted to be there.

“We now put it to one side and wait for the draw and then we think about that.”

On the basis of how the group stage has gone, there can be no big complaints from the club about how they’ve tackled the tournament.

With many fans and pundits before the season worrying for how they would fare in both the Premier League and the Europa League, they have been made to eat their words as they are thriving in both. Thankfully, there have been few injuries to key players, which means that the spine of Rui Patricio, Conor Coady, Joao Moutinho and Raul Jimenez have been able to flourish on the European stage, for which the Nuno and his staff deserve appreciation for.

It’s a glorious time to be a Wanderers supporter. Next Monday will be a great spectacle as they find out their European fate – and it will be made all the better if they can grab three points on the weekend against Spurs.

Share this article