Danny Batth insists Wolves are full of confidence heading into Birmingham City clash
Skipper Danny Batth says Wolves go into Friday's West Midlands derby against Blues 'full of confidence' after their performance against Chelsea.
Wolves lost 2-0 to the Premier League leaders in Saturday's fifth-round FA Cup tie. But they pushed Antonio Conte's team all the way and earned praise from the Italian boss.
Batth said of the game: "Occasions like that are the reason you're in the game.
"When you get the taste for it, you want more and more of them.
"We said before the game that for us to win, we'd have to be at our maximum and they'd have to have an off-day; that didn't quite happen but we certainly gave them a scrap for 65 minutes.
"I know from experience that if you give Chelsea an early goal, you could end up conceding four or five, but I thought we matched them all over the pitch.
"These are world-class players who can do something unexpected at any time, and we nullified that.
"We needed to ask questions of them and make sure that we ran flat-out for 90 minutes.
"We did that, and I think the fans can be proud – I think they were delighted with the manner in which we attacked the game.
"We weren't scared of Chelsea, and if we'd taken our chances, it might have been a different outcome."
Wolves now head into an important derby clash with Gianfranco Zola's struggling Blues.
Zola's team have lost nine of 14 since he controversially replaced Gary Rowett in December and were tanked 4-1 at home by QPR on Saturday.
Wolves will look to do the double over their local rivals and move to within two points of Blues, who are 14th in the Championship. Depending on midweek results Wolves could be just two points above the bottom three, should Wigan and Burton beat QPR and Bristol City respectively in midweek.
Batth said of the Blues clash: "We've got nothing to fear.
"We said in the dressing room straight after the Chelsea game that if we take that level of performance into the league matches, starting with Birmingham, we won't have a problem.
"Our performance definitely dipped against Wigan (Wolves lost 1-0 to the Latics at Molineux a week ago) but previous to that we had Newcastle here, who are challenging at the top of the table, and on another day we would have beaten them.
"We go into the Birmingham game full of confidence. We'll have had almost a week to recover from the Chelsea match and I think we're all looking forward to it."
