Wolves 1-0 Millwall: Diogo Jota scores winner

Wolves returned to winning ways in the Sky Bet Championship as Diogo Jota's first-half strike secured a 1-0 victory against 10-man Millwall at Molineux.

Nuno Espirito Santo's side had only taken a point from their previous two games but Jota's strike after 10 minutes kept them up among the early-season pace-setters and ensured the Lions' poor run of form away from the New Den continued.

They have failed to score in their three away games this season and now have not won on the road in the Championship for 11 matches. Their misery on Saturday was compounded by the second-half dismissal of Aiden O'Brien for two bookable offences.

Wolves gave a sign of what was to come after eight minutes when Millwall goalkeeper Jordan Archer had to pull off a smart save to deny Leo Bonatini following a right-wing cross from Matt Doherty.

But there was nothing that Archer could do when Jota exchanged passes with Bonatini before powering towards the Millwall area. The Millwall defence made the mistake of backing off Jota and he took full advantage to let fly from the edge of the area with a shot that whistled past the right hand of Archer and into the far corner of the net.

Millwall, who fielded their two summer signings from Wolves - George Saville and Jed Wallace - were fortunate not to fall further behind in the 21st minute when Jota saw his angled drive flash across the face of goal following a Ruben Vinagre pass.

Wolves were dominant and should really have turned that dominance into a second goal before the interval. But the closest they went to doubling their lead in the opening 45 minutes was on the stroke of half-time when Ruben Neves saw his rising drive fly inches too high.

It took Millwall fully 52 minutes to mount an attack of their own but Steve Morison failed to test Wolves' goalkeeper John Ruddy with his header from a James Meredith cross as the ball flew well over the bar.

Wolves still carried the greater threat and almost doubled their lead in the 64th minute only for Archer to pull off a spectacular save to push away a deflected drive from Romain Saiss.

Millwall's task become even tougher 60 seconds later when O'Brien was dismissed after collecting his second yellow card in the space of 11 minutes following a challenge on Doherty, having earlier been cautioned after a foul on Jota.

Archer ensured that they at least stayed in contention with another smart stop from Bonatini nine minutes from time before frustrating Saiss from close range in the 88th minute. Wolves then survived a late scare when Ruddy did well to hold on to a stoppage-time strike from Shaun Williams.

The managers

Nuno: There is a lot of work to be done to make them better. The boys have to enjoy it but at the same time improve. I am sorry to repeat myself but we always can do better and we will do better. That is the idea that I have for the next game. We should do more with the quality of possession and the chances that we had.

"When the opponent is down to 10 it can reduce the spaces but we should be more aggressive in those moments. It is the next step. We should improve. It is the next challenge. We want to achieve points. Where we are in the table at this moment doesn't mean anything."

Neil Harris: "I think in the first half we showed too much respect to Wolves. We maybe lacked a little bit of belief in imposing our style of play. We addressed it at half-time and I thought that for 20 minutes in the second half we looked much better - a lot more Millwall-like, a lot more dogged.

"I thought we were the better side and then the red card comes and changes the momentum of the game again. I have not seen it (the second yellow card) back but at the time... no complaints. Aiden is a really bright football player and he knows better than to pull somebody back when he is on a yellow card and that made it an uphill struggle for us."