The former Wolves forward spent four years at the club in the 1990s where he helped the team to their first FA Cup semi-final in 18 years as well as narrowly missing out on promotion to the Premier League. A regular visitor to Molineux this season - before Covid-19 put a temporary halt to proceedings - Goodman has been enjoying the gold and black ride as much as anyone.
On Nuno’s impact at Wolves
“It’s been a remarkable two-and-a-half years. If somebody would have told me when Nuno arrived that this is how it was going to go, I would have laughed and thought they were from Planet Zorg.
“You’ve got to remember that he took over a team which had finished in the bottom half of the Championship and rebuilt it. But the players that he kept; Conor Coady and Matt Doherty, he’s made them 50/60 per cent better – massive amounts – with his coaching and his motivation.
“But then the additions have been unbelievable. Wolves now have some of the best players in the country.”
On Wolves pushing the established ‘big six’
“Wolves are now a genuine top eight Premier League club. That’s genuine – not me looking through gold-tinted glasses – they really deserve to be where they are and they really are a top team in the Premier League, both with the footballers they have at the club and the football they are playing and they’re balancing it with Europa League.
“I’m not sure how many clubs that haven’t been established in the top six with massive squads have ever done this well of balancing the Europa League and Premier League – probably none. You only have to look at Burnley last season as an example.
“I can only see this Wolves side going from strength to strength, but that is dependent on them keeping hold of these players.”
On the Wolves ‘project’ continuing
“You get the feeling that the manager and the coaching staff are all invested in the project, and that’s what it is at Wolves, it’s a long-term project to establish the club as one of the best in the country.
“Watching them and being around them, you get the feeling that the manager and his staff are all invested in that project. You also get that same feeling from the players, and that is key really.
“It’s vital that they keep the players that Nuno wants to keep, to give them momentum to carry this on into future seasons, and if they do that, with one or two new additions, then I dread to think how far Wolves could go.
“It could be remarkable.”
On comparing his 90s side to the current team
“It’s such a tough thing to compare because football has changed so much in that time. You’d like to think that good players would be good players in any era, so current players would be good back in the day, and the ones that were good back in the day would be good now.
“But in terms of achievements, this group have set the standards and set the benchmark, so obviously I’m going to say they are a better team than we were.
“We underachieved collectively, and I think that’s fair to say that, if not the best team, we were the best squad in the Championship when I was there. We were easily one of the best two or three teams, but we never had what it took to get into the Premier League, so that was an underachievement.
“This group are unbelievable really, so I have to say that they would kick our backsides in terms of scoreline, but we would kick their backsides literally! We would have to be physical and kick them as much as we could just to balance things up a bit!”
