Wolverhampton Wanderers striker Hwang Hee-chan could be missing for several weeks after suffering an ankle injury while playing for South Korea.
The 28-year-old forward twisted his ankle in his nation’s 2-0 win against Jordan last week and will be sidelined for at least two weeks while his ligament heals.
“There’s something there in a ligament on the inside of his ankle,” said O’Neil. “From now, he will probably be a couple to a few weeks, so hopefully nothing overly long.”
And O’Neil hopes the enforced lay-off might help Hwang to rediscover the form that has deserted him for much of the season so far.
“The injury gives him a moment now. If you think where Hee-chan was this time last year, and the form he was in and how sharp he looked, since he went away to the Asia Cup last season and came back and picked up a couple of injuries, he’s never really been able to get back to that.
“Obviously he needs to rest and he needs to recover the ankle but also he needs to try to get himself in a place that he gets sharp and he gets fit and he gets himself in a really good spot, that he’s able to come back and and impact the Premier League in in the way that he showed he could last season.”
Wolves face Manchester City on Sunday with just one point on the board from their first seven Premier League games this campaign.
O’Neil’s side have faced statistically the toughest start of any side this season but the head coach says they cannot keep making excuses for their poor form.
His comments came after Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola claimed in his pre-match press conference that Wolves are better than their position at the foot of the table suggests.
“I do understand that one point from seven isn’t good enough,” said O’Neil. “I understand what Pep’s saying, but we need to show it, and we need to prove it.
“That tipping point will come soon, where we can’t sit here forever and say ‘we’ve had tough games and lost a couple of important players in the summer’.
“People will say ‘OK, well, now what?’ So at some point we need to get it going.”
(Jon Hobley | MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
