Wolves not ‘on the beach’ and will fight to the end: O’Neil

LONDON: Gary O’Neil says Wolves are not “on the beach” and hopes they can show their “disruptive” nature in their remaining games this term as they target a finish in the Premier League’s top half.

The midlands outfit ended a run of seven games without a win in all competitions with Saturday’s 2-1 home victory over Luton, lifting them to 10th with three games to go.Next Saturday Wolves go to Manchester City – who they beat 2-1 at Molineux in September – and they then host Crystal Palace before a trip to Liverpool.

Boss O’Neil said: “Pleased for the players because they’ve been giving a lot and there’s been a little bit of negativity around recently, understandably.“I can sit here and answer honestly around ‘we’re a bit short, we’re trying our best’, but it was still seven without a win which doesn’t sound good. So delighted we can now put that to bed.

“I think it will be really tough for us to finish (in the top half), we’d need a really special end to the season. But we’ll keep trying. I’ll fight until the very last minute to finish 12th instead of 13th, or 10th instead of 11th.

“I’ve seen the phrase ‘on the beach’ mentioned quite a lot recently and I promise you, there’s none of that. We’re going to keep going and a top-half finish would be a fantastic end to the season.”

Regarding the trip to City, O’Neil said: “I’m hoping I can be on the touchline – we’ll see how Tuesday goes with the hearing (after being charged by the Football Association earlier this month).

“They’re a ruthless machine. There’ll be no pressure, we can go there and see if we can cause an upset – we’ve managed to cause a few this year.“I would call us a disruptive team that when we play those teams at the top we’ve managed to find a way. But this will be the ultimate test.”

Hwang Hee-chan put Wolves ahead with a 39th-minute finish, his 11th league goal of the season and first since the turn of the year having been at the Asian Cup with South Korea and had a spell out injured.Matheus Cunha provided the assist, he and Hwang starting together having last done so on December 30, and O’Neil said Pedro Neto is set to also return from injury either against City or Palace.