Conor Coady saw plenty of faces come through the door at Molineux in his seven seasons at Wolves.
What was a Championship side when Conor Coady arrived transformed into one able to compete in Europe.
That meant the arrival of players like Raul Jimenez, Diogo Jota, and Ruben Neves, who came in and raised the quality, enabling Wolves to reach a level where they could compete in Europe. But not all transfers worked out perfectly in Coady’s time at the club.
One current world-class keeper spent some time at Wolves on loan, and the Englishman can’t believe how far they have come.
Conor Coady didn’t expect Emi Martinez to get so good
Emi Martinez had a unique path to stardom in his long career. He joined Arsenal way back in 2010, and spent a good portion of the next decade on loan at different clubs.
One of those spells was with Wolves circa 2016, joining a side seeking promotion back to the top flight.
On BBC’s Monday Night Club, Coady discussed his former teammate, questioning why someone like Man United wouldn’t have looked at signing him over the summer. He says: “If he makes a mistake, he gets on with it, he goes again. So I’m bewildered why they’re not going to sign a keeper like that.”
Coady was then asked what Martinez was like as a teammate.
As Coady puts it: “Yeah, do you know what? Nothing like he is now. He was quite quiet and a good keeper. You could obviously tell he was a really good keeper, but what he’s gone on and gone on to do is unbelievable.
“Honestly, he made again, we’re talking about mistakes. He made a few mistakes for us in the championship, and he played every now and again. We had Carl Ikeme at the time and they were rotating a little bit. One would play, the other would play.”
But seeing his old teammate win the biggest honour in football shocked the former Wolves captain
He continues: “But he’s quite a quiet lad and then I see him dancing at the World Cup final and I never expected that mate, believe me.”
You can never write a player off too soon
‘Dibu’ Martinez was a second or third-choice keeper for much of his career, not getting a move away from Arsenal until he was 28 years old.
But when he got the chance, he grabbed it with both hands. Since joining Aston Villa in 2020, the Argentinian has transformed into a dominating, intimidating presence between the posts.
His national team successes have been plentiful, winning the World Cup and two Copa Americas, and Martinez has his fair share of individual awards, too.
Wolves could have signed Martinez at 23. Perhaps that would have allowed him to reach the top sooner, or maybe that was just the path his career was always going to take.
It goes to show, you can’t write anyone off.