Craig Dawson limped out of the Wolves win over Chelsea (Picture: Getty Images)
Gary O’Neil apologised for describing Craig Dawson’s ‘graphic’ gash across the knee to TV viewers, suffered in Wolves’ 2-1 win over Chelsea on Sunday.
The veteran defender limped out of the game at Molineux in the second half, replaced by the Hugo Bueno in the 70th minute, as Wolves picked up an impressive win over the Blues.
Mario Lemina and Matt Doherty scored the goals, but the injury to Dawson was a low point for the home team.
O’Neil, though, confirmed that it was nothing serious, it just looked and sounded bad as he was carried off with a ‘deep cut’ on his knee.
‘It’s a really deep cut across the patella, so a tricky one for him,’ the Wolves boss told Sky Sports. ‘He’ll be fine, I’m told, they’ve stitched it up and it will heal no problem.
‘The medical team tell me he’ll be fine for Brentford in a couple of days, but just where it is on the knee if he’d have carried on it would have kept opening up.
‘Sorry if I’m too graphic for the viewers, but a gash across the knee.’
Gary O’Neil’s team climbed to 11th in the Premier League with the victory (Picture: Getty Images)
Wolves climb to 11th in the table with the win, level on points with Chelsea and only behind them on goal difference, which O’Neil is thrilled with on Christmas Eve.
‘To get every last bit out of everybody available, and for them to dig in and be together, and not scrap a win but to be comfortable for most of it, is huge credit to the group. I’ll enjoy Christmas Day tomorrow after that,’ he said.
‘I thought it was a tough day for us today, we lost 3-0 at West Ham and nobody was happy. I had a call early this morning from the doctor. Jean Bellegarde not feeling well, Craig Dawson not being 100 per cent from his virus. We had to call up young lads to make sure they were available this morning.
‘It was a tough day for a group which is small, but with what we had out there, I knew if we got to our maximum level, especially here with the fans behind us, we could hopefully cause Chelsea some problems. First half we turned over the ball a bit too much, but apart from that I thought we were very good.’
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‘If he’d have carried on it would have kept opening up.’