O'Neil vents his frustration after Wolves Cup exit

Manager Gary O’Neil has voiced his perspective, defending his team following their recent loss.

The Molineux club were impressive in the Carabao Cup against Brighton on Wednesday, but lost again.

He stated post-game: “Of course, lots of positives. The main thing is always the result, of course it is, and we know the run of fixtures is brutal that we're in, and that we still face coming. We made a lot of changes, and the team still functioned well. We made some errors without the ball first half that gave Brighton a little bit too much joy. Once we managed to get that tidied up with the players, and they were able to follow the plan much better, we were better side, which takes some doing here. We should have won that second half, no problem.

“Of course, that’s not going to help us, but moving forward, and you can feel it from the fans at the end, they can still see that there's a lot going. We’re giving ourselves opportunities to win football matches against tough teams, and unfortunately, at this moment, we haven't managed to turn one our way.

“The lads still take a lot of heart from how well we were able to do on the road, at a tough place, against a side that hasn’t lost yet this season. You see the changes that they made and see how strong they are. Gutted to lose again and gutted that the lads gave themselves such a fantastic opportunity of getting a big result on the board for us today, and just that last little bit let us down and the sucker punch at 3-1 obviously made it very difficult.”

On the goals they conceded, he added: “The first one's a long way out, sloppy giveaway of course, but a long way out we've been hit with a few of them, not a great chance against us as similar to what you'd say with Harvey Barnes and Schar the other night, and it ends up going in. Disappointed with the defending a little bit on the second one. The lads understand, I think off the back of how stable we were second half out of possession, compared to how tough they probably found it first half, the importance of positioning and using your brain, not just your legs, to fix things.

“So, a big improvement second half. When you miss a chance at the moment, or one goes past the post, or they clear it off the line, you're like, ‘Not again. We're right in this, and we can't quite squeeze it over again’. But I did have real belief stood on the side of where the lads were, that we were going to go on to get something from the game, and we come up just short again.”