Bruno Lage: Wolves only interested in ‘top players’

The Wolves chief reiterated his desire to achieve ‘something special’ in charge of the club and will not look to beef his squad numbers for the sake of it.

Instead, Lage in on the scout for talent to add to and improve the first-team ranks, providing stern competition to the players already at Compton.

Wolves, who welcome Manchester United on Sunday afternoon, have been linked with moves for a centre-half in recent days – including European talent Duje Caleta-Car and Sven Botman – though their head coach has been coy on which positions he wishes to strengthen by Tuesday.

Lage said: “We need top players. Some players to come and be in the squad, for me is not good.

“If you want to do something special, with the way we play, we need top players.

“We need to increase the competition.”

It remains to be seen whether Lage bolsters his frontline ahead of the deadline, but one player whose return to availability increases competition is wideman Daniel Podence.

The Portugal international made a goalscoring return to action in the Carabao Cup this week and will compete with Adama Traore and new-boy Francisco Trincao in the roles flanking Raul Jimenez or Fabio Silva.

Podence was part of a Wolves side that clicked into gear in the latter stages at Nottingham Forest, where the visitors netted some fine goals.

The four strikes were the first competitive goals of the Lage era after blanks in two otherwise impressive Premier League displays which ended in narrow defeats.

Lage feels there were signs of he and his coaching staffs’ methods in the performance at the City Ground.

“That’s why I said in the beginning that we need time to create this dynamic. That’s important for the players to continue to believe in what we are doing,” the head coach said.

“This is the process. We analyse training and the games and show the players what they are doing. That’s the plan, to continue work.”

Lage added: “By training, that’s the dynamic we have created every day.

“It was the only thing, I challenged them to change a little bit the way they play and they believe in us. They’ve been training hard since the first day.

“We spent the first three or four weeks without some of the main players because they were in the national competitions, but when they come we adapt.

“The way we work, with good tempo in training, we create specific situations like in games.”

“We analyse everything, show them the good things and the things they need to improve and the games.

“We are here to work and they are willing to improve. When this combination happens we can do good work.”