Cesar Peixoto is sweating on the fitness of some of his Wolves internationals ahead of a busy schedule of five Championship games in 15 days – starting with Saturday’s trip to Middlesbrough.
Fer Lopez and Jordan James both returned to Compton Park with knocks, while Jean-Ricner Bellegarde played more for Haiti than expected after coming back from an injury in pre-season so will have his minutes managed, although the head coach has revealed Rafiki Said has progressed well with his recovery and will be part of the squad travelling to the Riverside.
Peixoto has also given an update on the fitness of Raul Jimenez and Yerson Mosquera, as with so many games coming up in a short period of time, the Portuguese is keen to have as many players at his disposal as possible.
On players returning from international duty
“They’ve come back, but Fer has a little problem with his knee and Jordan James has a little problem with his foot. JJ [Bellegarde] came back a little later than the others because he travelled a lot and played more minutes than we expected, especially because he’s coming back from injury and we had to manage his training sessions as well.
“But the players are happy to come back to the group, we have a great group spirit and had grown a lot over the last few weeks and I think they’re ready, but with these little problems, we have to manage the situation for tomorrow.
“Everyone else is fresh and happy to come back. I’ve spoken about this since the first moment – we have a very, very good environment at the club, with all the staff and all the players. When you have this kind of environment, it’s easier for the players to come back and enjoy training and being at the club.
“We’re going in a good direction and we have a good spirit. Three weeks is a long time to be apart, and the players have missed training together, so I think we’re now at our best moment in terms of group spirit.”
On keeping track of minutes when players are away
“We’re working on that all the time. I spoke with Bellegarde’s national team coach to try to give the right minutes to JJ because we were worried that if they would give him a lot of minutes, he could get injured again. He was injured for a long time and didn’t have a pre-season with us. I spoke with him personally and have tried to manage the situation.
“With Fer, when we knew about his problem, the club tried to speak with the Spanish national team to bring him back as soon as possible so he could recover, because we have a lot of games.
“Jordan James felt something in his foot during the last international game. He’s only trained with us today and still has a little pain in his foot, but we manage the GPS and see what they do in training and how many minutes they’ve played in games also to manage the physicality and get as much information as possible so we put them in the right way.”
On chances of playing against Middlesbrough
“They’re [Lopez and Jordan] not 100 per cent. I don’t play mind games. They have a little pain and they’ve trained, but I need to think about the situation and speak with them right up until the last moment to see if it’s better for the team that they play in this game or they don’t play because we have three games in a row this week and next week is the same.
“We will judge if it’s better to take the risk or not, but that decision will be taken with the medical department also to make the best decision for the team. I always look at what’s best for the team, but we have a lot of games, so we’ve got to manage this situation as we need these players available throughout that period, not just for one game and then have problems afterwards.
“Rafiki [Said] is ready to start getting more minutes and building towards his best level, but Yerson [Mosquera] needs a little more time because he’s been injured for a long period, so still needs a little more time. He’s training with us, but physically he’s not yet at the level I want or the level the team needs for him to play. Rafiki will travel with us because he’s now at a good level.”
On using the last three weeks well at Compton
“They’ve worked very, very hard. It’s been almost like pre-season. We’ve had to put a strong physical load into the players because they haven’t been playing games. But now we’re going into a period where we have a lot of games in a row, so it’ll be play, recover, play, recover, play, recover. Like how we have to put fuel in the tank of a car, we’ve got to put fuel in the players too so they can stay fit enough for a lot of games we’ve going to have.
“It was also important to improve Rafiki’s physical condition and help him understand our patterns better because he didn’t do the whole pre-season with us. It’s been the same with Bertrand [Traore]. We’ve tried to push him because we need all the players. With the way we play and the way we press, we need four wingers who can rotate, whether that’s in the starting 11 or during games.
“We managed the three weeks well, we gave the players some days off because they needed and deserved that, but we also worked them very hard. We’ve tried to push Yerson too as we needed to improve his fitness further, so having these kinds of players training with the team gives us more options for the games ahead.”
On planning for the busy schedule
“As a club, we have a lot of people working on that. We anticipate different scenarios all the time. For me as head coach, I’m only focused on Middlesbrough. After the game, when we’re travelling back, I’ll start looking at the next opponent like that, but all the work behind the scenes is already being done.
“We have a very good technical staff, both my own staff and the people at the club and they bring information together for me so I can analyse it and decide on the best strategy so we can fight and win all of the games.
“For me, around 80 per cent of the game is about our own identity – how we defend and how we attack, and the other 15 or 20 per cent is about adapting our strategy to the opposition, the spaces we can use and how we can defend against them, but the work is done, for sure.”
On not rushing Jimenez’s recovery
“At first with Raul, we thought the injury was quite serious, then I told you it wasn’t as bad as we thought, and that’s still the situation. Raul and the medical department are doing everything possible to get him back as soon as possible, but I think his recovery is going to take a little longer.
“He’s not suffered a set-back – it’s about the diagnosis and how Raul feels. He doesn’t feel comfortable enough to take the next step yet, so the medical department has decided to give him a little more time because we want him to come back and stay, not return and then get injured again.
“We have to take things slowly with Raul because he’s an important player for us and we want him available for the whole season, not come back and go out, come back and go out. I don’t have a timeline with him.”
