Wolves captain Conor Coady struggles to hide surprise at missing out on Man of the Match award

Defender’s partner at centre-back, Max Kilman, won the prize – as Coady found out in a humorous exchange on Monday Night Football

(Getty Images)

Conor Coady seemingly struggled to hide his surprise at missing out on the Man of the Match award following his Wolves side’s victory over Leeds on Monday.

Wolves were 1-0 winners at Elland Road in the Premier League, securing all three points thanks to an impressive, long-range half-volley from Raul Jimenez on 70 minutes.

But it was captain Coady and his partner in central defence, Max Kilman, who stood out with their performances for the visitors. The latter, who joined the club in 2018 but is a relatively new face in Nuno Espirito Santo’s starting line-up, was named Man of the Match – much to Coady’s surprise, it seemed.

Coady found out the news when asked by Sky Sports to evaluate Kilman’s efforts, and the England defender replied: “Did he?! Oh, right!”

Sky’s Monday Night Football pundits burst into laughter at Coady’s reaction, with former Liverpool and England centre-back exclaiming: “He thought it was him!”

“No, never!” Coady laughed. “Stop laughing and making a show of me!”

The 27-year-old then said of Kilman: “He deserves it, he deserves it. He’s been brilliant, honestly, he’s been with us for years now.

“He’s a great lad and he’s learnt the role inside out. Tonight I thought he was brilliant again.

“He gives us a bit of balance on that left-hand side, as does [Romain] Saiss as well, but – like I say – he’s been brilliant the last two games and he’ll keep on improving and getting better.

“That’s all I can say about him, he’s a pleasure.”

Kilman, who has now started back-to-back Premier League games for Wolves for the first time, previously represented England in futsal, and his skills are often on show in Wolves’ training sessions, Coady said.

“All the time, yeah,” Coady told Sky. “[And] he loves having battles with Adama [Traore]. Most people don’t go near Adama in training and [Kilman] full on fights with him, so he loves that side of it.

“Like I said, he’s improved loads after the last few years, he was brilliant again tonight.” 

Coady then smirked “and he deserved Man of the Match, by the way,” to laughter in the Sky studio, prompting host David Jones to jokingly ask: “Are you sure?!”