Wolves boss O'Neil: Victory over Chelsea an incredible effort

Wolves boss Gary O'Neil hailed his players after their 2-1 Christmas Eve win against Chelsea.

Mario Lemina and Matt Doherty struck for the hosts at Molineux.

O'Neil said: "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.

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.

We were a little bit sloppy with the ball first half and gave Chelsea some joy, sloppy turnovers, and we managed to be a bit better with that second half. I thought we deserved to win, I thought we were fairly comfortable apart from the last five minutes when we gave them a really soft goal. Another big home performance and they can enjoy their Christmas now.

We changed halfway through the first half to try and give us a bit more security with the ball, which worked well, and some stuff to do with shape. I wanted the lads to be a bit calmer with the ball, and have slightly better options, because we got caught trying to attack too quickly and we needed to find moments where we kept the ball and make good decisions.

It's part of the process that we're in. Incredible win with what we had available to us injuries and three young lads on the bench against a team and squad the size of Chelsea, with what they had available to throw on late on. For the lads managed to dig in, fight and find a way to beat a talented Chelsea group is an incredible effort."