Wolves boss Nuno Espirito Santo says forward Patrick Cutrone needs time to adjust
Wolves boss Nuno Espirito Santo says striker Patrick Cutrone will take time to adapt to life at Molineux.
Cutrone, 21, joined from AC Milan in the summer for a fee believed to be in the region of £16m.
He has made 16 appearances for Nuno's side thus far but has scored just once in the 5-2 defeat to Chelsea in September.
The Italian U21 star was brought off at half-time in Wolves' 2-1 Europa League comeback win at Slovan Bratislava on Thursday night.
His replacement Adama Traore helped Wolves secure that turnaround as Nuno shifted formation from 3-5-2 to a 3-4-3.
And as Wolves prepare for a trip to Newcastle United in the Premier League on Saturday Nuno says it will take time for Cutrone to adapt.
He said: "He’s integrating into the team, it’s not easy to come and be already where they expect them to be, it takes time.
"The best thing that we have is that he’s onto it, he works hard so it’s up to us to decide but of course all of the players that came are integrating in the spirit of the club and the squad so we’re expecting good things from him.
"It’s not easy but it’s a challenge for him.
"This is what we want from players, to take him out of his comfort zone and always be able to upgrade your performance, be versatile enough to play in different positions and different shapes and systems is one of the things that the players must be ready for.
"Sometimes you have to decide which shape you use, regarding the options that you have, the momentum of the players. Which players are in the right moment to be used also, the schedule?
"All these things have been managed well but I think we have a lot of room to improve, a lot of room to improve of course.
"I’m always positive because I love what we do here and we want to play, we want to compete, we want to make our fans happy - that’s what we work for. We have to be positive every day."
Wolves have had the fewest number of shots in the Premier League so far this term.
In their opening nine games they have only taken 80 shots, scoring 12.
But Nuno does not want his men to start shooting for the sake of shooting to try and improve that statistic as they aim to make it seven unbeaten at St James' Park on Sunday.
He said: "It depends how you see it. If you are clinical, if you don’t have many shots but if you are clinical and you score - fantastic!
"If you have a lot of shots and you don’t score, you have a problem. It depends but it is one of the aspects that we have to improve, of course.
"To be able to score you have to shoot but shoot in the right moment, don’t shoot because of the stats. Shoot because it’s a good option.
"We see the game, of course the stats are something that you have to look at because they are facts, but we see the game, we see the dynamics of the game.
"How long do you take to recover the ball, how long can you keep the ball?
"If your possession ends up in an action that allows you to finish in a proper way. The stats are a tool for help, but it is not the main thing, of course not."
