Romain Saiss driven on by Wolves' lack of European football

Wolves had a great 2019/20, ending seventh in the Premier League and making it to the quarter-finals of the Europa League – but it was not enough to guarantee European football again for this term.

Now, having kicked off the new campaign with a 2-0 win at Sheffield United on Monday night, the Moroccan is keen to make up for that.

On whether missing out on this season’s Europa is driving them on, Saiss said: “Yes, because we were really happy to play in the Europa League last season.

“Even starting in the qualifiers in Northern Ireland, Armenia and Italy.

“It was fantastic, so we want to come back to Europa League football as we know the feeling of that competition.

“We want to go back, of course, so we will do everything to finish as high as possible in the table.

“I think we’re confident. We have to stay humble also, but we have everything to achieve something good in this league.”

Despite the quick turnaround from their Europa quarter-final loss to Sevilla, Wolves made a remarkable start at Bramall Lane.

Raul Jimenez emphatically opened the scoring after just three minutes, with a bullet header from Saiss coming swiftly afterwards.

Saiss put in a man-of-the-match display against the Blades, and he said: “Of course, we want to improve season after season.

“I think we were just a little bit disappointed about last season because we got more points, but we didn’t get the Europa League.

“So, it was sad, because we worked a lot over a long season and didn’t get what we wanted.

“But we are going to work again this season to improve in terms of points and, hopefully, in terms of place in the table.

“It’s a good start, and now we’ll take it game by game and try to improve week after week.”

Saiss could have had a hat-trick against United, seeing another header fly narrowly wide and then latching on to a Jimenez pass and forcing Aaron Ramsdale into a top save.

“I’m happy, of course, because it’s not normal for me to score goals,” he added. “I think I could score probably two, or three, but one is good as it helped the team.

“It was an important goal, just after the first one.

“Then after, we were able to manage the game like we did it. I think we had many opportunities to score maybe three or four goals, so it’s important to work in this way to kill the game.

“But for the first game, it was a great game.”