‘Huge difference‘ - Wolves boss makes honest fitness admission ahead of Newcastle United and Brighton games

Wolves boss Gary O’Neil has admitted his side will not have the ideal preparation for their trip to St James’ Park on Saturday afternoon. Both Wolves and the Magpies are in FA Cup action this week, but O’Neil’s side will have 24 hours less than their opponents to recover from their midweek cup excursions.

Wolves face Brighton on Wednesday night as they attempt to book their place in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup - just three days after defeating Sheffield United at Molineux on Sunday. Speaking ahead of his side’s clash against the Seagulls, O’Neill said: “You always feel less tired when you’ve won, but the schedule isn’t great for us this week. Putting our game on the Sunday when we had an FA Cup game on the Wednesday wasn’t ideal because it means Brighton get an extra day on us and then going into Saturday’s game, Newcastle get an extra day’s recovery on us, and as we know, we have a small squad so it will be tested this week and we’ll need to be really switched on.

“In a short turnaround, a day makes a massive difference. Playing Saturday-Tuesday compared to Saturday-Wednesday is a big difference and lads will feel a hell of a lot better come Wednesday when they play Saturday compared to Sunday, especially as you get older, it makes a huge difference.

“But it doesn’t mean that it has to have a big difference on the game – we’ve played teams before when we’ve had less recovery and we’ve looked like the team that’s had more recovery, so it’s just another challenge for us.

“I’ve had really good conversations with the fitness staff and the medical team around how best to use everybody because in an ideal world, everyone is fine to go 90, 90, 90, but there will be situations that we’ll need to manage during the week to get the best out of the group.”

Wolves and Newcastle played out an entertaining 2-2 draw at Molineux back in October and are separated by just one point on the Premier League table heading into this weekend’s game.