Watch Wolves vs Huddersfield live on Super Sunday, Sky Sports Premier League at 4pm
Sunday 25 November 2018 14:20, UK
He's the Englishman at the heart of a team that's packed with overseas talent.
As he prepares to face his former club Huddersfield this weekend, Conor Coady told Sky Sports what it's like to be the leader of a pack of Wolves who are hungry for success.
"We want to win games, it's as simple as that," he says. "It's about winning football matches but sticking to the way we do things, to stay in our shape, to be organised, to talk to each other and when we get the ball to try to play as much as possible."
It's a mindset that Coady acquired as a highly-rated young player coming through the ranks at his hometown club Liverpool. He made a single Premier League appearance for the club - as an 88th-minute substitute against Fulham in May 2013. But with the competition for first-team places so fierce he felt he needed to move on to further his career.
"I was lucky in that I played in a Liverpool team alongside the likes of Raheem Sterling, Jon Flanagan, Andre Wisdom and Suso and you knew that these players were special," he says. "I think you have to recognise where you are as a player. I knew I had to go out to learn - to sit around at Liverpool wasn't going to do me any good."
After a loan spell in League One with Sheffield United, he joined Huddersfield in 2014 in the hope that his career would develop. A spectacular goal for the Terriers against Wolves at Molineux did little to harm his growing reputation at Championship level.
"For me, dropping down to League One and then getting into the Championship with Huddersfield was the right pathway. It was one where I knew I had to learn, I had to get better if I wanted to get any higher and I think that mentality's helped me."
Coady's steepest learning curve has arguably come at Wolves, who he joined from Huddersfield for £2m. From the moment head coach Nuno Espirito Santo arrived at Molineux in the summer of 2017 he saw the midfielder as a ball-playing centre-back.
"I've not really looked back," Coady says. "I've not played anywhere else. He played me there in training, played me there in games and I think it's important to keep listening to him.
"I've always been brought up with trying to move the ball and, since the manager's come in, that's how he's wanted us to play. To pass the ball forward, to attack, to penetrate as much as possible and to switch the ball as much as we can."
As captain Coady played a pivotal role in Wolves' promotion last season. But he admits that the club's recruitment of bigger-name players from abroad has focused everyone's minds on trying to keep their places in the team.
"You see the players who arrived during the summer such as Rui Patricio, Joao Moutinho and Jonny from Atletico Madrid and you think `this is really going somewhere'," he says. "The challenge is to stay there. We're always listening to the manager. I think that's the only way you'll stay a big part of this football club."
But such has been Coady's own level of form this season that even Nuno has endorsed the view that he ought to be considered for an England call-up. The 25-year-old has already represented his country at several junior levels.
"England is the pinnacle of any Englishman's career," he says.
"To see what they've done over the past year, how they want to play, how they fared in the World Cup and now the Nations League has been sensational.
"As long as I keep listening to the manager here and keep on improving then we'll see what happens but I'm really not thinking about anything like that at the moment."
A more immediate concern was Wolves' recent Premier League form. Their early season momentum appeared to have been halted by successive defeats against Watford, Brighton and Spurs.
"When you look at the Watford game we didn't play well, that's easy to learn from," he says. "But when you look at the Brighton and Tottenham games we've actually performed quite well. I think the one thing that catches you out in the Premier League is that if you lose concentration for one or two minutes they will punish you."
A fortnight ago Wolves travelled to Arsenal in the belief that it was a game that they couldn't afford to lose.
"The most important thing was to stop the rot," he says. "We spoke about it the week before. The manager had a long conversation with us out on the training pitch and he said that we needed to stop it. We'd been beaten three times - it hadn't previously happened since he's been here. But to go there and play how we did was the real positive as well."
After taking an early lead through Ivan Cavaleiro Wolves were denied a win by a late equaliser, the woodwork and an impressive performance by Arsenal keeper Bernd Leno.
"It was a really surreal feeling after the game," Coady says. "It was crazy. We came in afterwards, heads were down. But then you think 'God, it's a fantastic point!' We can take confidence from that game."
With 16 points from their first 12 Premier League games Wolves are continuing to impress on their return to this level. And their captain is leading by example. But Coady, for one, is refusing to get carried away.
"This is the Premier League, it's such a big division," he says. "We can say `we want to finish here or there' but there are 19 other teams who want to finish there as well. I think that as long as we're focusing on ourselves, focusing on what we do we'll be doing OK."
Watch Wolves vs Huddersfield live on Super Sunday, Sky Sports Premier League at 4pm.
