Gary O’Neil has confirmed Rayan Ait-Nouri is set to be included in Wolves’ matchday squad for their Premier League clash with Nottingham Forest on Saturday.
The 22-year-old has been in sublime form for Wolves in recent weeks but was forced off after just 55 minutes in the 2-1 defeat to West Ham last Saturday with a calf injury.
However, the Algeria international has recovered quickly and O’Neil has indicated that the left-back could keep his place in the team for Wolves’ trip to Forest.
‘[Hwang] Hee Chan’s in the matchday squad, fantastic news for us. [Matheus] Cunha’s still fine, he’s matchday squad,’ O’Neil said in his pre-match press conference.
‘Daws [Craig Dawson] is in the matchday squad again. [Jeanricner] Bellegarde, it probably comes too early. We’ll check him in the morning, but I wouldn’t think JJ would play much of a part.
‘Rayan’s with the group, he’s had different week to the others of course with the slight issue he has, but it is a minor issue, nothing too significant in there.
‘He’ll travel with the group, we’ll name the team in the morning and it gives him another day as well to see how he’s feeling. I envisage him being part of the matchday squad.’
Wolves drew 1-1 at home to Forest in December but O’Neil believes his side’s opponents represent a different threat under Nuno Espirito Santo this weekend.
‘If you look back to the home game, it was 1-1 and a very sort of defensive set-up from them – they sat there with nine players defending and a couple of counter attacks,’ O’Neil said.
‘They don’t play anything like that anymore. They’re still a big counter attack threat because of what they have on the pitch, but a very different style, so it’ll be a different test.
‘I look at what they have available and the threats they have, and what we need to do about them. Then some issues we can try and cause them and what best suits what we have available.
‘We’re not quite at full strength yet, some players coming back which is really positive for us, but we’re not back to the free flowing best that we were with all of our attacking players available, so we’re still having to be creative with certain things.’
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