Bruno’s methods give a glimpse of his Wolves plans

It has been clear to see in the pre-season friendlies to date, that this new-look Wolves side will be more aggressive, more attacking and – with time – more exciting.

But time is key, Lage needs the opportunity to transform a squad that for four years has been largely cautious in its approach.

The head coach’s training sessions – of which there has been two a day – have been intense since he took over as he gets his ideas across.

And when this writer was invited to watch a session taking place on the Molineux turf, it was clear to see what Lage is working on.

Game-like scenarios

One of the obvious focuses from the session was the importance on creating game-like scenarios in training.

Lage was notably unhappy with the first-half display in the 3-2 loss to Las Palmas recently, in which he criticised his team’s performance in the transition – in relation to his team’s reaction to regaining possession or losing it.

Working on the transition was a huge part of this session, with the available squad split into two teams of 11 and playing out scenarios they would find in games.

Lage and his coaching staff would throw a random ball into play, once the original ball is out of play, and begin the game from different positions – tasking his team to react quickly to the new situation and create a goalscoring opportunity. The players’ ability to react quickly will be crucial to Lage’s style coming to fruition.

Fast-paced passing

Alongside the reaction in the transition, Lage was encouraging quick forward passing in attacking areas. He wants aggressive, purposeful passing that creates spaces out wide and overloads for Wolves’ talents to exploit.

That only works when the midfielders and wing-backs make themselves available for triangles in the pockets of space.

That, in turn, allows the forwards to drop into space, play a backwards pass in the triangle and then run in behind to receive the third pass in a dangerous area. For example, in this particular training session, Francisco Trincao received the ball from Ki-Jana Hoever with his back to goal, played a ball back into Joao Moutinho in midfield and then ran into the space behind the defender for the final pass.

Set-piece work

It is obvious to most that Wolves desperately need to work on set pieces, both attacking and defending. Lage knows that, too, and has highlighted it as a weakness.

Throughout training, certain players were pulled out of the other drills to work on set pieces. Ruben Neves, Moutinho and Hoever all had chances to delivery corners, while Conor Coady, Max Kilman and Romain Saiss worked on attacking and defending them.

Some of the forwards – including Raul Jimenez – also joined in on the attacking phases.

With set piece work in mind, Lage is identifying where Wolves need work and he is methodically and tactically tackling it.

Hands-on Lage

Although Lage and predecessor Nuno Espirito Santo are very different in style, the new boss does share one similarity with him – he is very hands-on in training.

Alongside his coaches, the 45-year-old runs the session himself and takes responsibility and ownership over improving his own players – unlike old school coaches that stand at the side and allow their staff to run the show.

Lage is a modern coach with immense passion for his job, who will stop a session abruptly if he is unhappy with a player’s decision – which he did a couple of times.