Shropshire Star

Conor Coady hails Wolves star Diogo Jota: "We're lucky to have him"

Conor Coady lauded Diogo Jota's match-winning contribution at Nottingham Forest and declared: "We're lucky to have him."

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The Portuguese forward scored both goals – his third and fourth in just three appearances – as Wolves moved to second in the table with a 2-1 win at the City Ground.

Jota is on loan for the season from Atletico Madrid and Coady said his presence in the Wolves team was a big advantage to Nuno Espirito Santo's side.

"He's a game changer," Coady said. "We're very lucky to have him at this football club, as well as a few others as well by the way.

"He's playing extremely well. He can score goals as you can see the last few games now. He's a real advantage to have.

"We're lucky to have players like him in the team at the minute and we need to take advantage of it as much as possible.

"He's a quiet lad. He keeps himself to himself, he has a chat with a few of the boys but the way he plays is fantastic.

"When you've got the calibre of the players we've got we have a great chance of scoring. The two goals were fantastic and the forward lads are a pleasure to watch at the minute."

The victory was Wolves fifth in the league and their seventh from 10 matches in all competitions since Nuno took charge in the summer.

Wolves weren't at their best against Mark Warburton's side but still ground out a result.

Coady added: "It's a massive three points for us.

"It was a lot about resilience and hanging in there. It wasn't the prettiest of games but you have to go out and perform like that sometimes.

"We knew how tough it was going to be. It was about digging in and when you've got players like Jota who can do things like he's doing at the minute it's a real advantage for us.

"We want to control games, even without the ball we want to control and be in charge of the other team.

"We want to set traps and push and win the ball back as high as we possibly can.

"I felt we did that. We didn't keep it as well as we should have but I felt we controlled it from the back, forced them wide and forced them to cross and then it's up to us to defend that.

"We're playing quite well at the minute – we want to keep it going."

Hopes are high that Wolves can continue their good form and be in the promotion mix this season.

Coady has experienced two mid-table seasons since joining the club from Huddersfield in 2015 and he said that while it was 'exciting times' at Wolves at the moment it was important to stay grounded.

"We don't want to speak too soon," he added. "We've have a great start but we'll take it game by game, we say that week in week out.

"If we can carry on doing what we're doing, we want to keep improving and controlling games as much as possible.

"We just need to be picking up those wins and learning at the same time.

"I said at the start of the season there's fire in the belly. We don't want to carry on being that mid table club, it's not right for this football club, we need to be pushing on and doing things.

"We're not getting too ahead of our boots.

"It's exciting times. There's a lot of optimism around the club at the minute. We're not getting ahead of our station, we know where we are and we need to keep on getting better.

"The changes have been fantastic and the manager's been outstanding with the boys, you can tell they're all listening to him."