Historian Clive Corbett looks back at the defender's career so far.
Conor David Coady
- Born St Helens, Merseyside, on 25th February 1993
- At Wolves: 2015-present
- Club Honours: Winner of the Football League Championship (2017/18), FA Cup semi-finalist (2019), Europa League quarter-finalist (2020).
- Total appearances: 300 (League 257, FA Cup 15, League Cup 11), Europa League 17)
- Goals: Five
- International honours: England under-16 (2009), under-17 (2009-10), under-18 (2010-11), under-19 (2011), under-20 (2013); senior (2020-present)
Conor Coady has fought his way into the elite Wolves’ 300 Club, carrying an ankle injury of late that would have floored a lesser man. The inspirational captain has been with Wolves since 3rd July 2015, joining the then Championship club on a three-year contract for an small undisclosed fee.
Coady was a product of the Liverpool Academy, joining the club in 2005. During the 2010/11 season he was on the fringes of the Reds first team, making the substitutes’ bench twice but failing to make an appearance that term. Conor had to wait until the 8th November 2012 to make his senior debut, against Anzhi Makhachkala in a Europa League group stage match. The next year, on 12th May, he made his Premier League debut in a 3-1 win at Fulham.
Unable to get more first-team football at Anfield, on 22nd July 2013 Conor agreed a sixth-month loan with League One club Sheffield United. He scored his first senior goal in a 1-1 draw at Leyton Orient in November 2013. With Coady having cemented a regular first-team place by Christmas, the Blades opted to extend his stay until the end of the season, by which time he had played 50 games and scored six goals.
Then occupying a midfield berth, Conor played against Wolves at Bramall Lane on 22nd March 2014, a match that the Wanderers won 2-0 as Kenny Jackett’s team stormed to the League One title. He hadn’t featured in the fixture at Molineux at the end of the preceding September where Wolves had triumphed by the same margin to send United to the bottom of the table.
On 6th August 2014 Coady signed for Championship club Huddersfield Town on a three-year contract for a fee believed to be around £500,000. Just three days later he made his debut as a substitute in a 4-0 defeat by Bournemouth. Conor’s first goal for the club came at Molineux on 1st October where Town beat his future employers 3-1. He also featured in the Terriers line up, wearing the number ten shirt, when Wolves gained revenge, by a 4-1 win at the John Smith’s Stadium the following February.
On 3rd July 2015, then-22-year-old former Liverpool trainee Coady signed a three-year deal with Wolves, having made 45 league appearances for Huddersfield. He had scored three goals, turning out 48 times for the club in total, and became the second player to join Wolves that summer following the signing of Portsmouth midfielder Jed Wallace. Wolves’ boss Kenny Jackett told wolves.co.uk: “He had a very good season at Huddersfield last year - his first at this level - and he will complement the midfield players that we have. He is in the type of age group that will have the hunger to improve and try and build on what he did last year.”
Wearing the number 16 shirt, Coady made his Wolves debut at Ewood Park on the opening day of the 2015/16 season (8th August) as Wolves beat Blackburn Rovers 2-1 courtesy of a controversial goal from David Edwards. Conor made a total of 39 appearances during that campaign as Wolves ended the season in 14th position – a time when owner Steve Morgan resigned as chairman and put the club up for sale.
The next season was a particularly turbulent one after Fosun acquired Wolves on 21st July 2016 for a reported £45 million. Kenny Jackett was replaced as head coach on 29th July, replaced the very next day by Walter Zenga. Zenga only lasted 14 league games, being dismissed on 25th October with the team in 18th place. After Rob Edwards served a short spell as interim boss, Paul Lambert was appointed on Bonfire Night.
Throughout this period of uncertainty, Conor Coady remained a constant strength in the Wolves midfield, making 48 appearances in total and missing only one league game. He also scored his first goal for Wolves in a 2–1 League Cup first round win against Crawley Town on 9th August 2016. He also enjoyed a successful return to Anfield, playing at right-back as Wolves shocked the Reds with a 2-1 win in the fourth round of the FA Cup on 28th January 2017. On this occasion, Divock Origi’s late strike was a mere consolation. This was one of two cup victories away to Premier League opposition but Chelsea ended the dream and a fifteenth-place finish ultimately cost Paul Lambert his job.
New head coach Nuno Espirito Santo was appointed on 31st May, and Coady was moved to the centre of a three-man defence for Wolves from the 2017/18 season onwards, where he spent much of the season as club captain. He signed a new four-year contract in September 2017 and played every game of the season bar one, when he was suspended for the trip to Burton Albion as a result of a red card at his former club, Sheffield United. Wolves stormed back to the Premier League and on 21st April 2018, during his 120th league appearance for Wolves, Conor scored a 66th-minute penalty in a 4–0 win against Bolton Wanderers to record his first league goal for the club, as Wolves sealed the Championship title.
Given the captain’s armband full-time, Coady was an ever-present player for Wolves in both the 2018/19 and 2019/20 Premier League seasons, in which they finished 7th in both cases. In 2019, he led Wolves to the semi-finals of the FA Cup where they lost 3-2 to Watford at Wembley Stadium. He also played every minute of Wolves' Europa League campaign in 2019/20 as they reached the quarter-finals. At the end of the competition, he was named in UEFA's Squad of the Season. All told in those seasons he played an incredible 103 games in all competitions. On 15th February 2019, Coady signed a new contract lasting to June 2023.
On 30th September 2020, three weeks after Coady won his first full England cap, he signed a new five-year deal with the club, keeping him at Wolves until 2025. In late November, he missed the game against Southampton as he had been in contact with a person diagnosed with Covid-19 - this broke an 84-game streak of playing every minute (7,560 in total), third-best for outfield players in the history of the Premier League. This also prevented him from beating the club record set by Phil Parkes for consecutive league appearances. Coady had played in 122 successive league games, just four short of Parkes’s figure. During the 2020/21 season Coady missed only that match, starting 40 times in total. On 2nd March 2021, he also scored his first-ever Premier League goal in a 1-4 away defeat to Manchester City.
Coady has represented England from under-16 to under-20 youth levels. He was capped 17 times for the national under-17 team, playing and captaining them at the 2010 UEFA European under-17 championship in Liechtenstein. He and his England colleagues won the tournament, and became the first England team to win an international tournament in 17 years. He was then part of the 2012 UEFA European under-19 championship in Estonia in which England got as far as the semi-finals where they were knocked out by Greece. He was named captain of the England under-20 team by manager Peter Taylor for the 2013 FIFA under-20 World Cup. He made his debut for the team on 16th June, in a 3–0 win in a warm-up game against Uruguay, and a week later he scored in the opening group-stage game against Iraq.
In August 2020, Coady was called up to the England senior squad by Gareth Southgate for the Nations League matches against Iceland and Denmark, starting in central defence against the latter on 8th September in a 0–0 draw, and in doing so, becoming the first Wolves player to start for England since Steve Bull in 1990. Coady was awarded man of the match by Sky Sports, and on 8th October 2020, scored his first goal for England in his second appearance, a 3–0 friendly win against Wales at Wembley. Coady’s leadership skills were such that that he was given the captain’s armband in the second half of that game.
Coady was in the England squad that came runners-up at UEFA Euro 2020, held in 2021. Though he did not play any games, he was dubbed England's "player of the tournament" by assistant manager Steve Holland, who believed that his presence in the team's camp was similar to that of John Terry when he played less often in his final years at Chelsea: “My player of the tournament so far is Coady. On the training ground he gives everything, whilst in the dressing room before games he speaks like he is captain.”
Express & Star reporter, Joe Edwards, summarised the Coady factor when writing in my book. ‘Golden Glow’, on the first Molineux match behind closed doors, against Bournemouth on 24th June 2020: “I have been fortunate to be there for the games behind closed doors so although it not my favourite per se, it offers a bit of a different perspective. Bournemouth was the first at Molineux and it was so surreal to be playing there without the lifeblood, the fans singing. It’s one of the loudest grounds in the country when it’s rocking and one of the most special that you will find in terms of atmosphere. You knew it was coming, but for it to be empty was still a bit of a shock. Sitting in the ground you could hear every single thing the players were saying, every kind of instruction from the bench, and basically a running commentary from Conor Coady pretty much throughout the game.”
With England, Conor was quick to be invited to join its leadership group to liaise with Gareth Southgate and his staff on behalf of the squad. Coady set about his task ensuring that the squad were bound together like climbers tied to the same rope. Southgate commented after one of the games: “Coady was first off the bench leaping in the air when England scored. The type of character that Coady is was shown by him being one of the loudest voices in the dressing room before a game and on the training pitch each day. You cannot put a value on his worth.” Conor has currently played eight times for his country and that is unlikely to be all, as he is doing his utmost to secure a place in Southgate’s squad for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
Writing the foreword to Bob Bannister’s book, ‘Wolves’ England Internationals’, Coady records his pride at representing his country: “The feeling of being called up to the England squad is like no other, for me, it’s the biggest honour you can receive. That first phone call is something I’ll remember for the rest of my life, you always dream of playing for your country, and every time I pull on that shirt is such a special moment for me and my family. Everything about playing at Wembley for England is sensational and the night I scored my first international goal against Wales will stay with me forever. For Bob to dedicate this book to me is incredibly humbling. When I play for England, I’m representing Wolves at the same time, and the support I feel from our pack is absolutely amazing. You look at the Wolves players who’ve played for England over the years, legends like Billy Wright and Steve Bull, and it shows how highly thought of our club is. The connection Wolves have with the English national team is something to be celebrated and this incredible book does that perfectly.”
Since the arrival of Bruno Lage in the summer of 2021, Coady has remained steadfast at the heart of the Wolves defence. He scored for the first time in the Premier League goal at Molineux (his first ever home league goal) in a 3-1 win over Southampton on 15th January, and remains ever-present this season, totting up 22 league and three cup appearances, the 25th of which, home to Norwich City on 5th February 2022, took him to 300 appearances for the club between August 2015 and February 2022. The match also marked his 400th career outing.
