Wolves boss Gary O'Neil was proud of his players after defeat at home to Arsenal.

Wolves were down on senior players on the day for the 2-0 loss.

O'Neil later said: “It was an incredible performance and one of my favourites, considering how tough I thought it was going to be for us. For the lads to show the togetherness, the commitment and the workrate to push Arsenal as hard as we did, I thought it was an incredible effort from everyone.

“I'm very proud, although disappointed with the second goal, especially that it was really soft, and we didn't deserve to lose 2-0. One-nil and not being able to score would probably have been the worst it could have been for us, but to lose the second one was really disappointing, but I'm really proud.

“It was an unbelievable performance and I can't believe how well the lads did really with how short we are. Channy [Hwang] was just able to do more than 45, Mario [Lemina] came on as a number nine and did well as a nine, so it was an enjoyable evening which you don't usually get if you lose, but I really enjoyed watching the lads, and I'm sure the supporters did as well.

“We were quite aggressive and pressed Arsenal as high as we could. We obviously used moments to try and take a rest, and defend the goal in a lower block, but we aggressive when we could. We had some success with it and thought we disrupted their rhythm a little bit, but there is some risk when you go that high and aggressive against very good players, but the lads handled it well and had some success.

“Unfortunately, it wasn't quite enough to get us a result, but I'm sure Arsenal knew they were in a game. I'd much rather us lose like that than just sit waiting to be beat in a low block for 90 minutes and Arsenal dominating possession.

“Although we were missing key players, we had plenty of energy and legs available to us in Bouba [Traore], Joao [Gomes] and Tawanda [Chirewa] and I thought we could use their energy to our advantage and we tried to."