Wolves v Everton preview: Bruno Lage relishing test of facing Rafa Benitez

The two sides face off under the Molineux lights in contrasting form, with Wolves winning three of their last four and unbeaten since mid-September, while Everton are winless in three.

In their last outing they had a surprising 5-2 loss at home to Watford, but Lage is not interested in the form charts and is expecting a tough encounter from Benitez’s men.

“That’s the big challenge in the Premier League, to compete against these managers,” Lage said. “If I look back 10 years ago, I see these managers and players on TV and now I’m here playing against them and trying to win the game.

“That’s the challenge of the Premier League, to compete with the best. That’s why, since the first day, I’m thankful to Wolves and my chairman for giving me the chance to be here and try to do my best.

“When I analyse the opponent I really don’t care about the result and sometimes I watch the game without the goals.

“What we can see is that they have an experienced manager and then you look at the team they are very solid. They have the four guys who play in front and they are very experienced. Anyone one of them can score any goal.

“I don’t care about what happened in the last game because it happened with us. We didn’t score any goals in the first three games and after that we started scoring.

“We want to continue in our way and we know we are going to play against a strong opponent.”

Lage has also revealed he is already thinking ahead to a tough fixture list in December.

Wolves face five of the traditional top six teams throughout the festive period, which includes a jam-packed schedule.

Willy Boly and Romain Saiss are also expected to leave for the African Cup of Nations and Lage is eager to pick up more points in the coming weeks to make that period easier.

“It’s going to be a hard period for everyone,” he said. “We don’t have a big squad and maybe we will lose some players to CAN and we need to compete with breaks of two or three days. It’s going to be a hard winter.

“We have that vision to try and plan and organise our squad. That’s why it’s so important to work like little ants to win the most points we can get.

“If we arrive in that period with not enough players to compete in two or three days and if we miss some to CAN, it’s better to arrive in that position in a comfortable position and with more points than we have now.”

Meanwhile, Lage has said Fernando Marcal is expected to miss tonight’s game against Everton with a calf issue, meaning Rayan Ait-Nouri is likely to keep his place.

Willy Boly, however, is expected to return to the squad after a short spell out with illness.