Conor Coady has admitted Wolves’ dressing room has been hurt by recent criticism as he threw his weight behind head coach Bruno Lage.
Conor Coady 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.”
Lage also faced criticism from sections of Wolves’ support after the Brighton defeat made it seven losses in 10 Premier League matches. He wasn’t able to make the trip to Stamford Bridge after contracting Covid-19, but he was able to pass on instructions via zoom and over the phone. His substitutions worked wonders in the second half with Francisco Trincao and Chiquinho swinging the game in Wolves’ favour. Trincao gave Wolves hope with a stunning finish from outside the box before Chiquinho produced a superb first-time cross for Coady’s last-gasp header.
Conor Coady added: “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.”