Express & Star

Conor Coady delighted with Wolves' unbeaten start

Skipper Conor Coady has stressed the importance of Wolves’ unbeaten record during their ‘really tough’ opening few weeks of the campaign.

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Conor Coady in action (AMA/Sam Bagnall)

Nuno Espirito Santo’s team have yet to lose in 2019/20, drawing their three Premier League games against Leicester, Manchester United and Burnley, as well as winning all five of their Europa League qualifying ties.

The 26-year-old centre-half, who hasn’t missed a minute of action for Wolves in any competition since January 2018, is looking forward to another ‘amazing’ week, with the team facing Torino on Thursday before a trip to Everton on Sunday.

And he said: “It’s an unbeaten start – if you’re not going to win you don’t want to get beat.

“It’s been a tough start to the season, people have got to remember we’ve played eight games.

“It’s a really tough start but I think we’ve done really well, I’ll be totally honest. The Premier League is as tough as it gets but to add the Europa League as well, which has been fantastic for us, has been tough.

“We’ve taken it head on, we’ve embraced it and we’ve got a huge game on Thursday.

“It’s amazing. We wanted to win on Sunday but when you go 1-0 down – and it was a great strike from the lad up top – it’s important not to lose and we didn’t do that.

“We’re looking forward to Thursday, it’s a fantastic game for us and we’re at half-time so we need to make sure we recover right and get ready for that.”

Wolves were laboured at times against the Clarets but persevered and earned a last-gasp draw when Raul Jimenez tucked away a 97th-minute penalty after being fouled in the box by Burnley defender Erik Pieters.

Coady said: “We found a way. We probably should have scored before the penalty.

“It was frustrating. They’re a good side, Burnley, they really are. They’re good at what they do.

“They’ve got two big, strong strikers who make it tough.

“It was a tough afternoon but I thought we got what we deserved.

“It was a tough game, it wasn’t as if we were playing against nobody, we have a tough opponent in front of us who played really well and knew what their strengths and weaknesses were.

“We were creating chances, we hit the post, Raul pulled one back and no-one was there, little things like that.

“We dug in and the penalty was a great finish.”

Wolves barely suffered any injuries of note last season, with only a handful of players missing short spells.

Coady hailed the backroom team at Wolves as ‘fantastic’ for helping the squad get through their busy schedule at the start of the season.

“That’s credit to the staff at this football club,” he said. “They’re amazing, they give us the right programmes and recovery sessions and the right training sessions as well when we don’t play and we need the work.

“They’re fantastic and all the credit goes to them for that.

“We were ready come Sunday, we knew how tough it was going to be. People might say we were tired from Thursday, but remember it was a really tough game for us.

“I thought we did well in the end.”