Wolves v Espanyol: Nuno and Conor Coady don’t want Euro journey to end

That is the thinking of both Wolves boss Nuno Espirito Santo and skipper Conor Coady heading into the Europa League last-32 clash with Espanyol, writes Joe Edwards.

To get to this first leg at Molineux, Wolves have won three double-headed qualifiers and successfully navigated their way through six group games.

And Nuno said: “We started earlier in the competition.

“We had to get through all the qualification matches and the play-offs. The group phase was tough, but since day one we’ve embraced the challenge and now we are proud of what we’ve done.”

But Wolves are not resting on their laurels as he added: “We want to keep competing well. It’s more than pride, it’s the motivation to keep on building and improving.”

Coady echoed those sentiments as well – after all, Nuno and his players have long been, successfully, singing from the same hymn sheet.

“It’s been amazing. It was something we said last season, that if we got the opportunity, we wanted to make the most of it,” said the captain.

“It’s something whereby we wanted to embrace it as much as possible and improve and take it on board.

“It’s been a wonderful experience and something we’ve enjoyed up to now, but we don’t want to look back and say we enjoyed it – we want to compete as much as we can.

“That’s what we’ve done up to now, so we look back and are proud, but also look at the game and make sure we’re ready for a real battle. It’s something we’re looking forward to.”

While braced for a battle, Wolves are firm favourites for this double-header with Espanyol.

The Barcelona-based side are bottom of La Liga.

However, Nuno – who used to manage Valencia in the Spanish top flight – warned: “It doesn’t mean anything. They achieved something very difficult to quality for the Europa League, it’ll be a tough game.

“Espanyol, they are a good team, a good squad, quality players.

“We’ve worked really hard on Espanyol to find the details to compete well.”

Nuno does not have any fresh injury worries. Ruben Vinagre is ‘really close’ to returning, but will miss this game with his hamstring issue.

So, Oskar Buur is likely to be on the bench again.

And Nuno has confirmed the 21-year-old wing-back is now ‘100 per cent’ a first-team player.

“Yes. We did it last season with Max Kilman, and this season with Oskar. He is 100 per cent a first-team player,” he said.

“I think it’s inside our philosophy, so we are happy with him. He’s working well and he’s an option for us.

“He’s progressing, he’s working well and he has talent.

“So, he’s an option. The pathway is there.”

Wolves likely XI: Patricio; Boly, Coady, Kilman; Doherty, Moutinho, Neves, Otto; Traore, Jimenez, Neto