PAUL PLANS
NEW Wolves boss Paul Lambert has pledged to wield the axe in January after watching his side grind out a dire draw at Preston.
Lambert, hired to replace the sacked Walter Zenga a fortnight ago, was shocked to discover a bloated 48-man squad awaiting him at Molineux.
A lack of cohesion and harmony was all too evident during the miserable run that saw Wolves take just two points from seven games to seal Zenga’s fate.
And after failing to trouble inform Preston for the entirety of a moribund 90 minutes, the Scot’s belief in quality over quantity has only hardened.
“Listen, I don’t even know who the 48 are,” said Lambert, who won promotion to the Premier League with Norwich in 2011. “And where they’ve come from, I don’t know. There’ll be kids in there, people who haven’t played. I’m probably a bit old school, but I think you have to earn the right to have your name on the back of a programme and I’m not sure some of them have.
“We need to get a group of lads that can perform consistently. There’s not a coach alive who could achieve that with a squad of 48 players. January is a big month for the club because we need to move people on. It’s not good and it’s not healthy for the football club.”
Yet if the present is transitional, the future is bright – literally. Bright Enobakhare, the 18-yearold striker, made his first appearance of the season and, according to Lambert, represents the vanguard of a golden crop.
“Bright’s only a baby in football terms, but he’s a big, big talent,” added Lambert. “He gets people off their seats. He might not play every game but he’s part of a huge future for this club. Not just Bright – there’s a number of kids in there who I think are as good as I’ve seen in many a year.
“If you’re good enough, I’ll throw you in. I needed that when I was growing up and it’s always stuck with me.”
Judged on this display, those kids can’t emerge soon enough. Though impressively diligent and disciplined at the back, the visitors were utterly toothless going forward, failing to register a shot on target prior to Nouha