Shropshire Star

Daniel Podence: High-flying Wolves are only going to get better

Wolves moved third on Friday night after a win over Palace.

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Daniel Podence warned Wolves are only getting started after they moved among the Premier League’s pacesetters.

The forward struck in Friday’s 2-0 win over Crystal Palace as Wolves extended their unbeaten run to four games.

Nuno Espirito Santo’s side moved third, level on points with Everton and Liverpool at the top of the before the weekend’s games, and Podence vowed there is more to come.

He said: “We play game-by-game and we are improving since the first game. We had a difficult pre-season because of these times, but we are improving and doing better.

“We can still do better because we are trying to be perfect. We can do better defensively and offensively.

“In this way we can achieve more, and I think we can do much more than last season.”

Debutant Rayan Ait-Nouri opened the scoring after 18 minutes, soon after Michy Batshuayi had a goal disallowed for offside, when he drove in after Podence’s cross was only half cleared.

Leander Dendoncker hit the crossbar and, after 27 minutes, Podence finished Pedro Neto’s cross from close range to wrap up the points.

Palace had a penalty overturned by VAR before the break after Willy Boly tripped Patrick Van Aanholt but the defender was offside in the build up.

Luka Milivojevic was also sent off with four minutes left for a bad tackle on Joao Moutinho to compound Palace’s woes.

“It was a great game. In the first-half we had total control but after 2-0 we did a great job defensively,” Podence told the club’s official site.

“We had a good game in both ways, defensively and offensively, so we are very happy to have this kind of win and we now have to rest before the Leicester game.”

Palace boss Roy Hodgson said afterwards he wants to appeal Milivojevic’s red card and Jeff Schlupp defended his captain.

“Everyone has seen it back and feel that it is a harsh decision. He got the whole ball but the referee has said something about the follow through,” he told the club’s official site.

“I don’t really know what else you want Luka to do in that situation. He can’t tackle someone and then pull your leg out of the way or make your leg disappear.

“But there is nothing we can do now and we’ve got to move on and get ready for the Leeds game.

“We changed a few things at half-time and it worked out better second-half, but it’s still not good enough; we made things too hard for ourselves from the way that we played in the first-half.”

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