Bruno Lage hails 'brave and confident' 10-man Wolves after Man City defeat

Wolves were flattened by goals from Jack Grealish, Erling Haaland and Phil Foden, while the sending off of Nathan Collins compounded their misery.

The hosts did have small spells where they impressed and Lage was pleased with the character his side showed.

"I see good signs, that the most important thing," Lage said.

"There's not too many teams in the world with 10 men that can do what we did against this top team.

"My players brave and confident. We made some mistakes, especially the way we conceded the goals, but with 10 against 11 there was one period where we were very good.

"Especially in the second half, we came with a good mentality to play the game we need to play."

Wolves did get into good positions, on occasions, but never threatened City's defence as their struggle for goals continues.

Lage believes City's opening goal after 55 seconds, and Collins' sending off, both played a big part in their defeat.

He added: "The plan was simple, we need to keep the ball. We see the midfielders in front of us and we need to understand that the space is on the other side.

"They don't like to spend too much time without the ball and we needed to make them run. They played Wednesday night and we started here at 12.30, we needed to make them run to try and recover the ball.

"When you start the game like that the team suffers. We had good moments and the second goal came in a transition when we don't recover the ball on the second phase and they score.

"After, with 10 men, we had good moments. Our best moments were between the first and second goals and the beginning of the second half, we came with the same plan to keep the ball.

"The plan was to continue with Ruben as a centre-back to continue with the ball and push the two midfielders more into the game, and continue with Pedro (Neto) and Guedes to push the line of four.

"It was our best period and we needed to score one goal to change something. When I was ready to make some changes to renew some energy, they scored third goal. After the third goal it was impossible.

"It was the right plan to play against this team. I am not happy because we lost and don't have anything from the game, but I see good signs that the team is playing the way we want to play."