Edwards on 'love' for Andre, Johnstone's injury and 'momentum'

Wolves boss Rob Edwards has been speaking to the media before Friday's Premier League game against West Ham United at London Stadium (kick-off 20:00 BST).

Here are the key lines from his news conference:

• In terms of injury news, Sam Johnstone is suffering with a "shoulder issue" and Matt Doherty has picked up a "niggle", so neither will feature on Friday night.
• The goalkeeper's injury may hamper his chances of featuring in the final seven games of this season, although Edwards hopes to obtain "more detail" soon.
• The "ultra-long" 25-day international break has been "good but strange". He explained: "I can't remember ever having this amount of time between fixtures, apart from during Covid, so it has been new and different for me."
• It has been an opportunity to "review some stuff, take some time off, do some good training and look forward" though.
• He added: "West Ham have had a couple of competitive games since we last played, so maybe that will help them. Hopefully the break has been good for us. It will be interesting to see how we turn up."
• When asked how Wolves will approach the fixture, he replied: "It is a really big game for both teams. We want to try to take things as far as we can, keep improving, keep the momentum going, and go into it wanting to win."
• Edwards feels the 3-0 victory over West Ham United earlier this season "certainly helped morale and built belief", but there had been "a lot of good performances" prior to picking up that result.
• He feels Nuno Espirito Santo is a "brilliant manager", who rightly has "legendary status" following his time at Wolves.
• On being able to move off the bottom of the table with a win, he said: "We want to try to take as much positive momentum into next season, so clearly we want finish as high as possible. To do that we need to get points, but we haven't thought about what it might do to the table. It would be silly to do so."
• He hasn't "thought too much" about what would make a good end to the season: "I suppose I want to try to keep the feeling we've got around the club right now. If we feel good about the football club and the work we have done, that's some success to take into next season."
• Lastly, when asked about defensive midfielder Andre, he replied: "I love him to bits. He is brilliant, as a person and as a player. He is a wonderful guy. When he plays well, we play well."

Follow all of Thursday's Premier League news conferences and the rest of the day's football news

Got a question about Wolves? Get in touch here and we'll seek answers from our experts

[BBC]