Gary O’Neil hails ‘wild horses’ Wolves after entertaining draw at Forest

Wolves boss Gary O’Neil described his players as “wild horses” after their entertaining 1-1 draw at Nottingham Forest.

Jean-Ricner Bellegarde’s first-half thunderbolt earned Wolves their first point of the Premier League season after Chris Wood had headed Forest into the lead two minutes earlier.

The point lifted Wolves out of the bottom three following defeats to Arsenal and Chelsea in their opening two matches.

O’Neil said: “What a group we have in terms of entertainment, courage, bravery, togetherness.

“A little bit crazy. At the end of the game there, some of the decisions we make, it’s like I’m trying to hold on to this wild horse and all of a sudden they’re just off and gone.

“It’s why I end up being so animated on the side, just trying to get them back to where you need them.”

O’Neil, who was booked after vehemently protesting against referee Simon Hooper’s decision not to award Wolves a late penalty when the ball struck Wood’s hand in the box, questioned some of his players’ decision-making.

“(Centre-half) Yerson (Mosquera) was excellent. I thought he was fantastic. But the ball goes back to Sam Johnstone with six minutes left in an away game at 1-1 and Yerson runs up to right wing to offer a diagonal option for Sam, which is madness,” O’Neil said.

“Loss of concentration, not being in the right place at the right time. The Premier League is ruthless.

“Hopefully, with the work we’re trying to do, the lads will start to make better decisions.”

Wolves also had a penalty appeal turned down when the ball appeared to hit Jorgen Strand Larsen’s arm in the first half.

O’Neil said he would have understood if that had been given by Hooper and that the second incident was “a definite penalty”.

“It’s interesting how close Simon got to blowing his whistle. Very close to his lips,” added O’Neil, who said he had apologised for over-reacting.

Forest extended their unbeaten start to the season and sit eighth after taking five points from their first three matches.

Manager Nuno Espirito Santo, now unbeaten in three games as a manager against his former club, admitted his overall feelings after the match were of “frustration” and “disappointment”.

He said: “We had moments where we could have done better today but we looked solid, which is a positive.

“I believe that as time goes by we will start to gel better and decide the final touch much better and much sooner. There are moments where we could have done it faster.

“Overall, I’m disappointed. In the second half, we went for three points and we got one, so we are frustrated.”