Doyle: Wolves well capable of survival
Record signing Kevin Doyle is confident Wolves can avoid being involved in a Barclays Premier League survival struggle if they can maintain their early season form.
Mick McCarthy’s £6.5m capture can see similar traits in the Wolves players to the Reading squad which made such an impressive initial impact in the top flight.
Doyle made his first league start for Wolves in Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Hull at Molineux after having to undergo a hernia operation in July.
He formed an impressive partnership with Andy Keogh and only a goalline block by Hull skipper Michael Turner denied him a late winner.
Doyle said: “We’ve looked good so far and, if we can keep our confidence up and keep working like we did against Hull, we will have no problems.
“It won’t be just a survival battle if we can play like in that game and in the other matches we’ve played so far.
“Away to Manchester City, they had chances but we could have nicked a draw. Against West Ham here we looked good, even though we lost, and we won at Wigan who in the previous game had beaten Aston Villa.
“If we can keep believing we can do it, we will be fine.”
Doyle added: “The squad is similar to what we had when we got promoted at Reading. There are lots of lads who have never played in the Premier League before, excited and hungry and eager to do well and also very good players.
“We had that at Reading. We finished eighth in the league, one point outside of Europe.
“We had a similar start then to now at Wolves as well, three or four points from four games, and we went on from there and I hope we can do the same.”
Doyle is delighted to be contributing to the cause after a frustrating start to his Wolves career.
He said: “I was happy enough just to get through the 90 minutes to be honest. It has been quite a frustrating time since I joined.
“That was my first 90 minutes for Wolves and my first start for them in the Premier League. It is the first time I’ve played 90 minutes for a long time.
“To be able to still run after 90 minutes is a great feeling. I played 45 minutes against Man City when I didn’t even expect to do that.
“The work I have put in while injured has been a bit of a slog pre-season with just being in the gym.
“But I forced myself to keep motivated and do that so as to see the benefits when I got out on the pitch and to feel fit and strong.
“I hope to play a couple of games for Ireland now and then I should be up to speed. That will probably make up the difference after the pre-season games I missed.”
McCarthy is optimistic that Sylvan Ebanks-Blake, Chris Iwelumo and Michael Kightly will be able to resume training after the international break.
But defender Stephen Ward will be sidelined for up to three weeks after undergoing a knee operation.
