Wolves manager Julen Lopetegui has warned his side that Leeds United "have the best physical data in the Premier League" as he shared his thoughts on the ongoing relegation battle between nine clubs ahead of Saturday's game.
Javi Gracia is busy preparing his side for what is set to be a testing game against Wolves who have only won one of their last five top-flight matches. Leeds can move within a point of their 13th-placed hosts with victory this weekend, as just five points separate the bottom nine teams.
And Lopetegui is all too aware of the fact that his side are in the midst of a relegation battle despite currently being five places clear of the bottom three.
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“I talked about this three or four months ago when I first arrived here and my point of view was going to be this and that is how it’s happened," he said when asked for his thoughts on there being nine teams still battling against relegation in the Premier League.
“There are a lot of good teams fighting for the same aim, so we have to be ready if we want to be able to continue in this race with the best mentality and the best way to play in all the phases of the game; the offensive phase, the defensive phase, and above all, putting the focus always in our players, in our team, to be able to improve."
Wolves suffered defeat in their last match after they lost 2-1 to Newcastle United and Lopetegui has now warned his side that Leeds' visit will present a different challenge entirely as he praised the Whites for their physical approach to the game.
“Each match is different and we have spoken a lot about the last match and how we suffered, but now it’s very close to a very important match in front of us against Leeds, so we’ve had to put all our focus on that.
“All the matches have good things and bad things, in spite of whether you won or you lost. Tomorrow [Saturday], we want to be able to beat a very good team in Leeds, with fantastic players – they have the best physical data in the Premier League, very good players one-on-one, very fast, so we have to be ready.
“But we have to put the focus in our job and our strengths too because we have to try to show and think in ourselves. We are going to try to do a lot of things in a good way.”
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