Gary O'Neil targeting Wolves January additions

With Mario Lemina and Nelson Semedo suspended, and Jean-Ricner Bellegarde injured, Wolves were close to calling upon youngsters at Bournemouth with Matt Doherty needing a late fitness test.

Under-21 players Harry Birtwistle, Tawanda Chirewa and Harry Whittingham all travelled to the south coast and O’Neil already has one eye on the winter transfer window as he looks to bolster his squad.

“To be honest, I’m a bit worried about squad depth,” O’Neil said.

“Matt Doherty shouldn’t have played really. He strained his groin and I thought he was definitely out.

“We would have been missing Doc, Nelson, Mario and Jean-Ricner Bellegarde, who has a small muscle injury.

“I was worried that coming to a difficult place like this without four big players would have been tough.

“We do have a small squad at this moment and we’ll hopefully look to address a couple areas in January.

“But Sasa was excellent when he came on. He’s now scored two goals off the bench.

“Pablo had an impact, Tommy Doyle was excellent. I managed to move Cunha and Channy a little bit. Cunha was a nine and I switched him with Channy.

“We have some talent, we just need to make sure we keep the boys fit as it’s not the deepest of squads.

“I look at Bournemouth’s squad now and the money they spent in the summer and the amount of depth they have now. Look at the amount of wingers they can bring on.

“Trying to pick which winger they’re going to play is difficult, whereas at our place, people that can play wide are pretty much Channy and Pedro.

“There’s a bit of a difference depth-wise with the squad. We had a different summer to them and managed to make an £80million profit while they spent over £100million.

“But I have an incredible group. They’re unbelievably tight and understand what I expect of them. They’ve given me everything so far.”

Wolves now sit mid-table on 11 points from nine games after navigating a tricky set of fixtures at the start of the season.

But O’Neil is staying grounded as he looks to consolidate Wolves’ position.

“I’ve never looked at the relegation battle, as I didn’t last season,” O’Neil added.

“I’m getting to know the group and they’re getting to know me, so I don’t know exactly what we can achieve this year.

“Everyone knows the turnaround we’ve had, it was like 40 players in and out in the summer. We lost an awful lot of experience. The two centre-midfielders that we picked (on Saturday) are 21 and 22 years old and have about 20 Premier League games between them. So the group is young and needs help to progress.

“We’ve got some fantastic talent in it but we’ve lost a lot of experience so there is a transition. Thankfully at this moment, we’re handling it well but we’re keen not to get carried away. I’m sure throughout a Premier League season that there’s going to be some tough moments for us where we need to dig in and fight. I’m not getting too carried away, but like I said, pleased to get to 11 points at this moment.”