Barry Douglas says Wolves ‘knew’ season would be special

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Wolves star Barry Douglas has been one of the club’s biggest commodities this season.

Throughout the course of the season, many of Wolves’ top foreign stars have made quite the impression in the Championship, helping to guide the club towards a sensational title-winning campaign. Now, with the league wrapped up, some of their lesser known heroes are starting to receive the recognition they truly deserve – such as Barry Douglas.

The 28-year-old has been around the world honing his craft, and now that he’s back on British soil, he’s starting to pick up more and more momentum as part of the setup at Molineux. Speaking to BBC Radio Scotland, Douglas has admitted the atmosphere surrounding the club was impressive from day one.

“Right from the very get-go, we knew it was going to be special,” Douglas told BBC Radio Scotland.

“The individual talent is there to see. You’ve got players like [Diogo] Jota, [Ruben] Neves who are are going to go on to top, top teams. It’s just the spirit we’ve got as a team, as a whole. Everything’s about the team, not individuals and I think that’s why we’ve been so successful this year.”

Douglas’ words will hardly come as much of a shock to the Wolves faithful who have followed them up and down the country this season, but for outsiders looking in, they may be surprised to learn of the club’s overwhelming confidence. After all, these kinds of initiatives don’t always pay off, especially in a division as unforgiving as the second tier.

While it’s all well and good for rival fans to assume that Douglas was exaggerating to a certain degree, the pieces were indeed already in place back in the summer. Nuno Espirito Santo managed to find the perfect balance between established players at this level and fresh stars who could gel well together, and the hunger of the team played a big part in that.

Take Douglas himself as an example – he’d spent a few years abroad becoming a more well-rounded player, and he would’ve been dying to prove that he could still cut it in one of the most competitive nations in the game. Some will call it a chip on his shoulder, but whatever it may be, it has turned him into an assist machine for the Midlands side throughout the campaign.