Owen Otasowie has remained a spectator for English Premier League side Wolves throughout February, but is still a top prospect for the club going forward.
Otasowie has remained on the bench for Nuno Espirito Santo’s side, waiting for his opportunity to continue his rapid development. The 20-year-old was handed his Premier League debut back in December by the Portuguese manager, in which he registered one assist in a 2-1 win over Chelsea.
Since then he’s only totaled 70 minutes across three league matches while being on the bench for a pair of FA Cup ties and several additional league fixtures. Despite not being able to earn consistent minutes yet for the top-flight club, Otasowie continued to garner praise from his manager.
“It’s going well. He’s training every day,” said Santo in an interview with Express and Star. “He had, some time ago, a problem that saw him miss some parts of training sessions for a period.
“But now, he’s doing well and he’s an option for us.”
Otasowie regularly featured for Wolves’ Under-23 side last season before jumping up to the first team picture over the summer. The midfielder has continued to train with the first team through the busy league season and has also gotten his chance on the international stage.
Gregg Berhalter gave Otasowie his senior debut with the U.S. Men’s National Team in a scoreless draw with Wales in November 2020, even before he recorded his first Premier League outing. Otasowie has remained a key player for the future at Wolves and has a bright future at Molineux if he continues to develop on the right track.
“We know how he talented is, while there are still things he has to improve,” Santo said. “He’s an option that we have and consider a lot. He can give good things to the team.”
For now Otasowie will just have to wait for his next chance to step onto the pitch for Wolves. The club is currently 12th in the EPL table, 11 points clear of the relegation zone and 11 points back of the final European qualification spot.
Yup. He also did suffer a slight knock a few weeks later and spent about three weeks getting back up to full speed according to Wolves reports I recall. The kid only started playing organized football at 14 i believe so I don’t doubt there is a lot of work to do, but…….Wolves had a real tough Feb, they have rotated and subbed little, and OO still couldn’t get even a few minutes here or there. That does make one wonder. Hmmm. We have heard this kind of lip service from managers to many times before. Next year will tell all IMO. Still will be only 20.
Has his lack of minutes coincided with missing the header at the end of the game back at the beginning of Jan?
Not that he should have scored but there did seem to be an opportunity to put it on frame and he just missed it (yes, the cross was a bit high)
Just curious
I was thinking the exact same thing! Dude really hasn’t seen the field since that miss. It wasn’t criminal, but seems like they didn’t forgive him as it was at the end of a close game.