Ki-Jana Hoever played less than 30 minutes on Saturday before getting off with a muscular question.
What did Lage say about Ki-Jana Hoever?
The Wolves head coach was pissed off to see the Dutch footballer run away early during the loss to Crystal Palace on Saturday. Ki-Jana Hoever lasted less than half an hour at Molineux before being forced out via a muscle injury. In his absence, the Wolves went down 2-0 to the Londoners, leaving a significant dent in their European aspirations.
Bruno Lage told reporters after the final whistle that Ki-Jana Hoever is a good example of young guys, young players, they want everything to happen. According to Lage when they go out and their teammate is playing, they don’t train at the intensity they need to train, they don’t prepare enough. And when they have the chance, these things happen.
Bruno has too many kids on the team, sometimes they don’t work the way they should. They are not prepared the way they should be prepared. And after, when they come to the team, these things happen. When they train, they think a lot that they don’t play like they don’t play. Bruno told them on the first day they are here, the first goal is to work and improve.
Injuries can happen, but it happened because Ki-Jana Hoever is not ready. Because sometimes Hoever does not work at the same intensity. According to Bruno Lage it’s just not for Hoever, it’s more kids on their team who need to understand that he doesn’t waste time on guys who don’t work hard every day to improve.
A little about the topic
A product of the famous Ajax youth academy, big things were expected from Ki-Jana when he moved to Liverpool at the age of just 16. But despite becoming the club’s third-youngest player in history when he made his debut in 2019, the defender was not assessed at Anfield and made only four appearances under Klopp before moving to Wolves in 2021. Hover has also been sparingly used by his current employers, with Saturday’s brief cameo in just his eighth PL game of the 2021-22 campaign.