(Reuters) – Wolverhampton Wanderers manager Julen Lopetegui said he would need a “long meeting” with the club’s chairman to discuss plans for the close season transfer window after the Spanish manager guided them out of the relegation zone to safety.
Lopetegui was named Wolves’ head coach in November when the club were staring at relegation but he has since overseen a turnaround to pull them up to 13th, sealing their top-flight status with three rounds left in the season.
The Europa League winning coach officially took over after the World Cup and transformed the side that had won only two games to sit bottom before the mid-season break, winning four of their last six matches to reach 40 points.
“I need a long meeting with our chairman (Jeff Shi). We have to be ready to improve and take advantage over the summer. We know the level of the Premier League, so the first step is to take our decision about a lot of players,” Lopetegui told reporters.
“We have to understand what is to happen the next year. We need to improve, we all need to be able to compete better in the next year, that is all.
“I am not going to talk about what will happen after the meeting… We have to be ready because this year has been a very hard one and can serve as a lesson for all of us.”
Wolves have scored the fewest goals among Premier League teams this season after an injury crisis in attack left them without strikers Sasa Kalajdzic and Raul Jimenez, with emergency signing Diego Costa scoring only once in the league.
“In football you have to want to increase your performance, your squad, this is about the investment too. If you don’t do it, all the rest of the teams in the Premier League will,” he added.
Wolves play away at Manchester United on Saturday, with Lopetegui describing the top-four hopefuls as a “top team with top players and a good coach”.
“We have ambitions to go there, to play well and to be able to compete with them,” he said, adding that there were no new injury concerns ahead of the trip to Old Trafford.
(Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Toby Davis)
