Bruno Lage has more questions than answers ahead of Wolves’ trip to Manchester United
Wolves head to Old Trafford on Monday after two festive postponements
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Your support makes all the difference.Wolves boss Bruno Lage admits even his players cannot say how ready they will be to face Manchester United.
The squad have been battling a coronavirus outbreak which forced the postponement of Tuesday’s trip to Arsenal.
It came after Boxing Day’s visit of Watford was called off after the Hornets were unable to field a side because of the virus.
Wolves go to Old Trafford on Monday – their first Premier League game since drawing 0-0 with Chelsea on December 19 – with Lage conceding he is yet to discover who will be available.
He said: “After 10 days without playing, in your mind, to be ready to play is difficult. I was talking with a player and I asked ‘are you ready to play?’
“He said: ‘I really don’t know’. After 10 days without playing and training you are slow to take the right decisions.
“If you take one more second to decide then the other team come and press. They need to continue to train and adapt as soon as possible.
“They are coming (back), that is why the next days will be important to understand which players are fit to play.
“There is nothing new but now we need to understand if the players have time to recover and are fit to play.
“We have two more days to understand which players are fit and ready to play this important game.
“We don’t have many cases but we have a small squad, [if] four or five players [have Covid] and then afterwards we don’t have players to play.”
Jonny (knee), Pedro Neto (knee), Hwang Hee-Chan (hamstring), Yerson Mosquera (hamstring) and Willy Boly (calf) are definitely out while Rayan Ait-Nouri has been battling a groin problem.
Wolves were forced to close their training ground for two days but Lage remains philosophical about the situation.
“We closed on 26 and 27 [December], some guys have symptoms, some guys not. They try to do little things but they still cannot do too much,” he said.
“We didn’t play against Watford because of Covid at Watford and afterwards [against Arsenal] it was because of us. We cannot blame anyone, we have to play our game because these kind of things can happen.”
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