‘It’s a proud moment’ says Tawanda Chirewa after first start for Wolves

Zimbabwe Warriors forward Tawanda Chirewa has described his first start for Wolverhampton Wanderers as a “proud moment for my family and one I will always remember in my career”.

Chirewa was handed his first start for Wolves by manager Gary O’Neil in their 2-0 defeat to title contenders Arsenal at Molineux Stadium on Saturday.

The 20-year-old forward who displayed an impressive performance played the better part of the match, being subbed off in the deep into the second half.

Speaking to the club’s media following his full debut, the UK born Zimbabwean international said:

“It’s a proud moment for my family and one I’ll always remember in my career. Obviously, the result kind of puts a bit of sadness to it, but we move on.

“I found out on Friday, so I had 24 hours to get myself in the right mindset, but even when I’m on the bench, I try to bring the right mindset to play. It was a little surprise, but I was more focused on trying to do what I can do and support the team try and get a result.

“There’s a lot of things I can work on, when I watch it back tonight, and see what I can really improve on, but I think it was a decent start.

“It’s little margins and I look back and see if I could have been quicker or done more stuff. I’m 100 per cent going to improve, I’ll keep working and keep watching the game back over.”

Wolves coach O’Neil spoke glowingly of Chirewa after the match.

“That was another progression tonight, it was a fantastic performance by Hugo (Bueno), and Tawanda’s incredible full debut against a very good side, Tommy Doyle another good performance, Santi Bueno another good performance.

“So although I’m sure all the Wolves fans, myself and the other players would love to have everyone else available, we would love to have our strongest squad, be flying, playing free-flowing football and pushing for the places above us, it’s not that at the moment,” he said.

“Although we were missing key players, we had plenty of energy and legs available to us in Bouba (Traore), Joao (Gomes) and Tawanda (Chirewa) and I thought we could use their energy to our advantage and we tried to,” he added.

Chirewa joined Wolverhampton at 19 in 2023, signing for the club’s U-21s before being elevated to the first team.