Cesar Peixoto was pleased with his side’s performance at Everton, but couldn’t hide his disappointment around losing Raul Jimenez to injury in the 1-0 defeat.
The Mexican was withdrawn during the first half which soured what had otherwise been a relatively positive evening at the Hill Dickinson Stadium, despite the narrow defeat late on.
The head coach made nine changes to his last Championship side, and each one stepped up, meaning Peixoto has even more confidence in his options throughout the whole squad moving forward.
On a battling performance
“I’m happy with the performance, not the result. The lads did a great job and stayed organised all the time. We know it’s difficult playing away against a Premier League team, but we fought, we played and we were competitive for the 90 minutes. The result could have gone our way.
“In the final minutes it became more difficult because it was Konan’s first game of the season, Bellegarde’s first game of the season and Bertrand’s first game of the season. We used this game to give minutes to those players. Of course, we wanted to win the game, but we also wanted to win a team and gain more options for us. I think we did a great job, but unfortunately we didn’t win and we also lost Raul, who is a key player for us.”
"The lads did a great job and stayed organised all the time. We fought, we played and we stayed competitive during the 90 minutes."
— Wolves (@Wolves) September 16, 2026
Cesar's thoughts on tonight's cup exit 🗣️ pic.twitter.com/QwikJxyfJt
On losing Jimenez to injury
“He was only going to play 45 minutes, like Krejci. Raul needed to play because he didn’t play 90 minutes in the last game. It’s not a muscular injury, but he has a small injury to his knee and we’ll be without him for a few weeks. For sure, that’s bad news for us.
“Raul is Raul. He’s a key player for us and unfortunately, he has this injury. We’re frustrated and Raul himself is frustrated too. But he knows he needed to play and get some minutes to maintain his fitness for the next game. At his age, we have to manage his minutes, but playing too few minutes isn’t good either. I spoke with him before the game and told him he would only play 45 minutes. It’s something that could have happened in training and tonight it happened in the game.”
On other players stepping up
“It’s important. I work with all of the players in the same way, and I believe in all of them. Today they showed me that we have a team. We don’t only have a starting eleven. We have a team capable of fighting and playing, and a lot of options to manage games – whether that’s in the starting eleven or from the bench. We saw that in the last game, when the players who came from the bench helped us win. Today, a lot of players showed their quality. Now we have to stay strong and fight in the next game. We have a team, like I said, and we want to remain competitive.”
On focus turning to Sunday
“We’re 100 per cent focused. We managed this game with Sunday in mind as well because our big goal is the Championship. We rested some players and gave minutes to others to bring them up to the level where they can become options for us.
“I think the lads can take a good feeling from this performance. Not because of the result, of course, but because tonight we didn’t win the game, but we won a team. That’s very important for me.”
