Julen Lopetegui believes he was right to keep faith in Wolves players

The head coach was under pressure to drop a number of players after the 6-0 loss to Brighton, with some supporters calling for Jose Sa to lose his place.

But the goalkeeper made a handful of important saves as Wolves went on to beat Villa, and Lopetegui stands by his decision to back the shot-stopper.

He said: "Sometimes after a defeat like Brighton, a lot of people have doubts about players, but my analysis was that, I have have to change for this match, maybe I have to change myself too.

"That's why I tried to put the confidence in the team and highlight that maybe you can have a very bad day, sure, but the confidence in Jose is the same, and in the rest of the team.

"We knew that if we wanted to go up the table we had to defend better, at the same time going to the opposition goal and being aggressive in their box. If you don't defend well in the Premier League, you lose, this was our first aim.

After, I think we did very good defensive work, but always trying to be very aggressive in the opposition box.

"We have won away too, and we've drawn but it's true in the last matches we have got the clean sheets at home and not away.

"It's not easy in the Premier League for clean sheets because all the teams have quality. Analyse each team at the bottom, and they have players with fantastic names. This is the strength of the Premier League."

Toti Gomes' goal after just nine minutes was the difference between the two sides, as Wolves defended well to take all three points.

For Lopetegui, that early goal was the perfect start to set his team up to nullify Villa.

He added: "It's been important. At the start it was a balanced match. We played against one of the best coaches in the world in Unai, with very big players. To score first was very important, they had a good chance.

"In my humble opinion we deserved to win. We made good things, had very good chances."