Super Eagles and Wolverhampton Wanderers striker Tolu Arokodare weighs in on his side’s chances of staying in the English Premier League at the end of the season, Soccernet.ng reports.
The 25-year-old joined the four-time FA Cup winners from KRC Genk in the summer for around €26m.
While he’s found the back of the net twice for the three-time English Premier League winners, none of those goals have come in the league.
The lanky striker was tasked with leading the line alongside Jørgen Strand Larsen at the Molineux on Saturday afternoon, but the hosts were unable to turn their chances into goals.
At the same time, two fortunate finishes for the visitors, courtesy of Yéremi Pino and Daniel Munoz, saw Crystal Palace take the three points back to south London.
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Reflecting on his side’s performance against the reigning FA Cup Champions, Arokodare said:
“We showed a lot of energy, a lot of fighting spirit, and that’s what we focused on from the start of the week,” the former FC Koln forward said in quotes relayed by Wolves’ official website.
“The training was very intensive, and we had good spirits, and we came to this game with good spirits.
“I don’t think it really went wrong anywhere until the goal. You cannot say it was bad defending or anything; we were just unlucky with the deflection. But luckily for them, they had a player to put it in the back of the net.
“But I thought we did pretty well the whole game, from the start to the end.
“Even after going two goals down, we still tried to play our football, but we didn’t get the result.
“I wouldn’t say there’s nervousness. I don’t think we’re nervous; if anything, we’re very confident. We’re confident the results will come our way very soon.
“We try to play our football, we try to get the goals, and the results are just not coming. The two goals we conceded were very unlucky, and that’s how it’s been for us most of the season.”
Arokodare weighs in on Wolves’ chances of Premier League survival
The Old Gold are currently bottom of the Premier League table with just two points from 12 games, but the Nigerian is assured that results will soon start to turn Wolves’ favour.
“He [Coach Rob Edwards] said we had to continue doing what we were doing in the first half, but do it better.
“He liked the spirit, he liked the energy, but he knew that we could give more, and we had to give more.
“We lost a couple of second balls, and we were one down when it comes to second balls, and he wanted us to win more second balls, but actually just continue and try to get the goals.
“Since he came in, he’s spoken with not just the players, but almost everybody at the club.
“He’s given us that confidence, and he’s shown us what he wants from us, how he wants to play, and the belief he has in us.
“He’s let us know that he’s going to be there for us, he’s going to fight for us and we just have to reward him and reward the fans that have stopped with us from the start of the season to now, and also reward ourselves for the for the hard work that we’ve put in since the start of the season and try to get a win.”
“I don’t think there’s an amount of confidence we have that’ll make us survive relegation– every little bit of confidence matters. I don’t think there has to be a certain amount.
“We just have to stay confident, stay positive and keep working, and hopefully we get the results,” the 2025 Unity Cup winner concluded.
Up next for Wolves is a trip to Birmingham as a clash against an in-form Aston Villa side beckons. Unai Emery’s side have won four of their last five games across all competitions.
