Gary O’Neil has commended Dan Bentley for proving himself to be a worthy competitor for the Wolves number one spot, despite overlooking him against Nottingham Forest.
The goalkeeper had to replace the injured Jose Sa in the first half at Arsenal before starting against Burnley in mid-week, and on both occasions Bentley impressed.
However, with Sa back fit for the draw with Forest on Saturday, the Portuguese shot-stopper was brought back into the team.
Despite that, O’Neil believes Bentley has proven himself as a Premier League calibre goalkeeper and he could force his way back into the side. The boss said: “It was a really tough decision and a tough message to deliver. Dan was excellent during the chat and understood.
“I think it’s important to speak about Dan as well. He was brought in clearly as a number two and when I arrived I didn’t know loads about him and Sa. I hadn’t seen them work closely.
“It was fairly clear to me when I arrived that there was the thinking that there was a number one and a number two.
“What Dan has done in the last few weeks is create a situation where Jose now knows that Dan is there if form slips. Dan is ready.
“Really good work from Dan to push himself on that and do as well as he did, but Jose is a top goalkeeper and I was delighted he was fit.
“I was delighted to have to make such a difficult decision, so hopefully we can keep them both fit, keep them both in a good place.
“Having two top goalkeepers competing for that number one shirt is really important.”
Meanwhile, Wolves have recently had a bad habit of conceding early in games and suffered that again against Forest, but O’Neil expects it to be a coincidence.
“I will look into it, we do look into everything,” he added.
“My thoughts would be that it’s probably a coincidence, but we need to make sure the lads are well prepared obviously and ready to go right from the off.
“It was a poor goal from our point of view. We had the ball, turned it over and got punished.
“Forest didn’t go too near our goal in that half until we made another error towards the end.
“We had lots of the ball, nearly 70 per cent, but just not enough quality to do enough with it and cause Forest problems.
“It’s not a test we’ll face very often. A back five in a low block, and looking to counter-attack, but one that we still need to find a way to be better at.”
