New Wolves manager Stale Solbakken knows he has a job on his hands to change the losing mentality of his players after they kicked off their first campaign back in the npower Championship with a 1-0 defeat at Leeds United.
Wanderers were dumped out of the Barclays Premier League last season after returning just five wins from 38 games, a statistic that saw the club turn to Norwegian boss Solbakken with a view to finding a new direction.
Success did not arrive on Saturday, though, with Luciano Becchio’s first-half header consigning a starting line-up that had just one fresh face in it, to defeat.
And, while admitting that his new charges did not deserve to take anything from the game, Solbakken also conceded it may take some time for them to shed the habit of losing matches.
“The only way you can change it (the mentality) is to win that first game and get that winning feeling,” he said.
“You can say that you can work hard blah, blah, blah, but you have to win that first game. Today was a fair result, there were not many chances in the game. Leeds protected their penalty area well when they went in front. I have no complaints.
“We are trying to find a winning formula. The team lost many games last season, maybe one win in 26 or 27. But now we have two home games and maybe we can get it then.”
For all the players he was able to select, Solbakken was not able to call on the services of Scottish striker Steven Fletcher, right.
He handed in a transfer request during the off-season and is a target of Sunderland but, with the north-east club or anyone else still to meet Wolves’ £15m asking price, he remains at Molineux.
“Fletcher has an injury and he is not with us, that is all I have on that that is useful,” Solbakken said.
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