Joao Moutinho magic mystifies Wolves skipper Conor Coady
Conor Coady revealed Joao Moutinho’s dead-ball wizardry is often a surprise to him – never mind the opposition.
Moutinho slid a signature slide-rule free-kick across the edge of the box for Ruben Neves to open the scoring in the 41st minute against Villa.
Wolves went on to claim a 2-1 victory and centre-half Coady hailed the midfield duo’s ingenuity.
He said: “The free-kick was absolutely outstanding. I will be honest, we don’t know where Joao is going to put one of those free-kicks – never mind the supporters or the opposition. I think it is better that way, that is how it works, we did not expect that finish, the pass and the way they worked it is fantastic.
“I didn’t have a clue they were going to do it, they are so clever the two of them. Not just them, Raul Jimenez and the people who join in with the things like that are so clever.
“They work on it day after day, little routines of how they can get better and improve.”
Jimenez’s 13th of the campaign and a late Trezeguet consolation goal completed the scoring at Molineux.
The victory saw Wolves complete another unbeaten week as they built on a 1-1 draw at Arsenal and 1-0 Europa League win over Slovan Bratislava.
And after 62 attempts but just four goals in those last three games, Coady is keen to find a ruthless edge when they return to action at Bournemouth on November 23.
He said: “We want to improve, we knew we had to improve in certain areas. We spoke about improvement at the start of the game. We needed to make sure we came out on the front foot and I felt like we have done that over the last two weeks.
“It is important that we are ruthless in front of goal and give ourselves something to hold on to.”
