Gary O’Neil is poised to welcome back three senior players into his Wolves starting XI, after admitting he couldn’t have foreseen the scale of their injury

Mario Lemina, Pablo Sarabia and Rayan Ait-Nouri are all expected to start against Bournemouth tonight while, in a further boost, Jean-Ricner Bellegarde could be back in the squad after making a quicker than expected return from a knee injury.

Matheus Cunha and Nelson Semedo are also pushing to be involved as the club’s injury woes finally show signs of easing. O’Neil will leave any decision on the latter pair’s involvement until as late as possible. Wolves have taken just two points from their last six matches to all but extinguish hopes of challenging for Europe. O’Neil recently revealed he had warned the club’s hierarchy in January the squad was at risk of burnout.

But yesterday he added: “Even I did not foresee it being as bad as it is now. There is another side to that, obviously, in terms of looking at why we have had the injuries and if there is anything we can do to make sure we don’t get them.