John Ruddy hails 'exceptional' impact of Wolves boss Bruno Lage

Following a successful four years under Nuno Espirito Santo, Lage had the tough task of taking over at a club in transition.

Although Ruddy reflects the squad’s disappointment at slipping up in certain fixtures, the goalkeeper believes the club is moving in a positive direction and has credited Lage for his impact.

He told the Express & Star: “It’s completely different to what it was and that was always going to be the way.

“No-one can ever take away what Nuno did for this club. He revitalised us in a way that no-one probably saw coming.

“But everything has it’s sell by date if you like and I think it was an important opportunity for the club to re-evaluate what they wanted from a manager and from a team.

“Bruno has come in and has been exceptional from day one. The tactical side and coaching aspect has been brilliant.

“He’s very hands-on, very emotional positively and negatively when we’re doing well and when we’re not doing what he wants us to do. The messages are clear, everybody knows what is expected.

“As you can see from the table, we’re sitting in a great position but we’re also very disappointed that we’re not nine or 10 points better off because we’ve had a few games where we’ve shown a little bit of naivety and thrown it away when we should have held out for a victory or a point at the very least.

“That’s frustrating from our point of view but it’s also a positive moving forward as a club because we have high ambitions from the management team, from the players and it’s now about the rest of the club catching up and making sure we’re all heading in the right direction.”

With six games remaining, Wolves are still in the hunt for European football.

From the electric football of the opening games of the season to Wolves’ consistency throughout the campaign – Ruddy says the secret has been finding that balance.

“It needed freshening up and it needed a new voice with new ideas,” Ruddy added.

“It’s a different style. We’re on the front foot, a lot more aggressive and playing higher up the pitch and we’ve found a balance.

“At the start of the season we were very aggressive and created an unbelievable amount of chances, we just couldn’t find the back of the net.

“Now it’s about being a little bit more pragmatic and attacking when we can and defend when we need to.

“We’ve found the balance over the course of the season. Now we have six games left and we have ambitions of qualifying for Europe automatically and taking it out of other people’s hands.

“It’s all about how we approach every single game and every single session. As long as we’re doing as we have done the majority of the season and taking Bruno’s ideas on board, I think we’ll be absolutely fine and we’ll probably surprise a lot of people.”