Conor Coady: Wolves doubters hurt players

The captain snatched a last-minute equaliser away at Chelsea to halt Wolves’ slide after three previous defeats.

Following hefty criticism over their performances and suggestions they had thrown the towel in on the season, Coady insists the players are fighting as one for the same goal.

“It’s huge (the fight we have) but it’s something that never goes away from our team,” he said. “You can play well or play poor but that will never change with our team. We have fantastic character.

“We have an incredible group of lads. We’ve had a lot of things said about us this week, about being on the beach and all this sort of stuff, but it’s never true and it hurts us as footballers to hear that.

“That’s something we would never do for this football club. We fight every single day.

“We’ve had to look at ourselves in the mirror this week but this was all about the performance and the lads did that really well.

“We’ve all spoken. I’m the captain but we have some really big leaders in that dressing room.

“We’re human beings who love playing for this club every day and we understand it’s not been good enough these last few weeks. We had to put it right.

“We’ve heard things about us this week. I was listening to TalkSPORT and it did my head in. We wanted to put that right.”

Last week’s loss to Brighton, which was Wolves’ worst performance of the season, capped three poor defeats and another lost opportunity to fight for Europe.

When asked if he agrees Wolves’ standards had not been met, Coady added: “Without a doubt but we learn, that’s what is so good about our team and club.

“We looked at ourselves in the mirror this week and spoke every single day about performance and how we need to get better.

“Not just for us, for the football club, the people that work at the club and those supporters that travel in their thousands to watch us.

“We understood that we had to get better. It was all about the performance and the result would follow.

“We listen to our gaffer every single day and his ideas are fantastic.

“Even with him not being here, he spoke in a meeting before we left the hotel and he spoke at half-time on zoom. It was about listening to him.

“It was important that we looked at ourselves over the last couple of weeks because we understand when we play poorly we open ourselves up to the opinions of others.

“We need to put that right but I think we’ve done that this week. We spoke about performing and nothing else has interrupted our play.”