‘I’m not worried’ - Tommy Doyle backs Wolves ahead of first reunion v Man City

Tommy Doyle said he is ‘not worried’ by Wolverhampton Wanderers’ slow start to the season and has backed the club to turn things around, ahead of Sunday’s Premier League clash against Manchester City.

Wolves have picked up just one point from their opening seven matches of the league season and are enduring their joint worst to a top-flight campaign since 1964/65. Therefore, a meeting with the reigning champions is the last thing the Midlands club wanted this weekend.

But Doyle is calm and feels the work rate and application of the Wolves squad will see results turn around.

"That happens in football and we have to deal with it,” he told the Express and Star in a recent interview. “That's how things are, it can't always go your way and you see a lot about people in the tough times.

"It's easy to be the best version of yourself in the good times, it's when something goes wrong that we have to deal with it. We have to face it head on. If we didn't [have the desire to turn it around], we'd have a problem.

"That's why I'm expecting us to get out of the situation that we're in, I'm not worried about that. At this moment in time it's disappointing for the fans, just as much as it is for us because we want to win.”

Doyle moved to Wolves from City in a deal worth £4.3m last summer, having previously spent a season on loan at Molineux. The 22-year-old made seven senior appearances for City, and Sunday’s game will be the first time in his career that Doyle will have faced his boyhood club.

However, the Mancunian is unlikely to start given he’s been named on the bench in every Premier League match this season by Gary O’Neil. It’s a run he’s hoping to end soon.

“I know the level I can get to, so that's why I work every day,” said Doyle. “Minutes have been varied and obviously that's disappointing, but that's part of being a footballer.”

City did lose this fixture last season, but it was a rare slip-up in recent head-to-head clashes against Wolves, with Pep Guardiola’s side winning seven of the last eight.