Shropshire Star

Defeat takes nothing away from Wolves says Nuno

Nuno Espirito Santo said a heavy final-day defeat took absolutely nothing away from Wolves' title-winning season – as Wolverhampton prepares to party today.

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Wolves lost 3-0 to already-relegated Sunderland at the Stadium of Light and produced arguably their worst performance of 2017/18.

However Nuno, while disappointed with the performance, brushed it off as he looked ahead to today's big celebrations around Wolverhampton and in West Park in particular.

"We were not as intense as we should be," he said.

"It's due to a lot of things. We were promoted a long time ago. We pushed until the last moment – we wanted to achieve a victory but the game didn't go well.

"It's not a question now to look and deeply analyse, but I think we should do better.

"We need to rest also.

"I cannot take anything away from my boys, what they've done this season is fantastic.

"It won't take the shine off the season. We did a fantastic job, the boys worked really hard throughout the season, had fantastic moments and we achieved what we wanted.

"We are champions and should be very proud.

"We are looking forward to tomorrow to celebrating with everyone in the park and after the dinner.

"It's important for us to finish the season celebrating with our fans."

Goals from Ovie Ejaria, Ashley Fletcher and Paddy McNair consigned Wolves to just their fifth away defeat of the season.

Goalkeeper Will Norris, making his first league start of the campaign, was arguably at fault for two of them and was then substituted with 20 minutes to go.

Nuno said that change, which saw Harry Burgoyne sent on, was planned in advance of the match.

"It was a pre-planned change," the head coach added.

"All the players working with us this season deserve minutes to really become champions.

"For Harry it was well deserved."

Wolves went into the match hoping to earn the solitary point they needed to earn 100.

They also wanted to beat Sunderland to complete a set of beating every single team in the Championship this season.

However the rock-bottom Black Cats will be the only team that Wolves failed to score against, or beat, in their triumphant 2017/18 title-winning campaign.

Nuno said a lack of intensity was a key factor in his team's meek performance, as well as fatigue after a long and tiring campaign.

"It's the intensity of our actions," he said when asked what had gone wrong at the Stadium of Light.

"The players tried hard, sometimes you have to be really fair to them.

"A lot of players played 50 games this season so let's be fair to each other.

"Today was not the best image but it doesn't take anything away from what we did."

Sunderland had only won two matches at home all season, both by a 1-0 scoreline.

But the 3-0 victory for the Black Cats equalled their biggest victory of the campaign – and equalled Wolves' heaviest defeat.

Nuno added: "It's the Championship. You can see by the results on the last day.

"Fortunately we didn't come here needing a result because it's a very, very tough competition with a lot of games."