Bruno Lage believes Wolves are still confident despite poor form

Wolves boss Bruno Lage insisted his side are not suffering from a loss of confidence ahead of Wednesday’s Carabao Cup meeting with Tottenham.

Saturday’s 2-0 loss to Brentford was a fourth defeat in five Premier League outings for Lage’s side, and also a fourth league game in which they failed to score.

Brentford took the lead with two goals in an eight-minute first-half spell, the first a penalty won and scored by Ivan Toney, but Wolves were on the front foot after the break – albeit unable to turn strong attacking play into goals.

“The confidence comes with daily work,” Lage said. “The way we started the game… we had big confidence and big ambition to control everything. Then there was the penalty and from this there is a consequence in how we played. But after we tried to come back into the game.

“We need to continue to work to improve everything. When we win everything is not great and in the same way when we lose everything is not wrong.”

Defeat left Wolves 16th in the table, and having lost four in a row at home in the league.

“Every time I want to see a reaction,” Lage added. “When we lose I want a reaction, when we win I want a reaction. You know this competition. (Tottenham) are a very strong opponent and they will come with the same ambition to win the game.

“We need to be ready to play in our home with our fans, to play our game and for sure we will be ready for that.”

The Carabao Cup has at least brought some encouragement for Wolves this season – after losing their first two Premier League matches of the season they took out their frustrations on Nottingham Forest in a 4-0 second-round win.

But their only other victory this season was the 2-0 win at Watford on September 11.

Lage’s predecessor Nuno Espirito Santo will be back in town for Wednesday’s third-round clash, having already inflicted a 1-0 defeat on his old club at Molineux in the league last month.

Though plenty of changes can be expected for the cup competition, Lage promised to field a strong side.

“I want to put the best players in the best form in the game,” he said.

“First we will analyse what we did, we will analyse the way we want to prepare for the game and then we will put the best XI out to compete in a game we want to win, because we want to have a good competition in the League Cup.”