Wolves boss Nuno Espirito Santo raves about Tottenham counterpart Jose Mourinho

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Nuno Espirito Santo’s Wolverhampton Wanderers will welcome Jose Mourinho’s Tottenham Hotspur to Molineux this weekend.

Wolverhampton Wanderers manager Nuno Espirito Santo has praised Tottenham Hotspur counterpart Jose Mourinho ahead of Wolves welcoming Spurs to Molineux in the Premier League this weekend (Wolves website).

Nuno, a goalkeeper during his playing career, was under the management of Mourinho at Porto when they won the Champions League in 2004, but they will soon be renewing acquaintances again after being in opposing dugouts last season when the latter was at Manchester United.

Wolves have bounced back from a slow start to the season to rise up to sixth in the Premier League table, level on points with fifth-placed Manchester United, and they go into the Spurs game on the back of a 4-0 hammering of Besiktas in the Europa League.

Mourinho, meanwhile, has invigorated Tottenham since replacing Mauricio Pochettino at the helm but will be hoping to return to winning ways after a deflating 3-1 defeat at Bayern Munich in the Champions League in midweek.

“He’s one of the greatest managers, so should be in football, and it will be a pleasure to receive him here in Molineux, and compete and play, but it will be a tremendous pleasure to have him,” Nuno told the official Wolves website.

“I don’t have to say many things, just see what Mourinho has done wherever he goes. I have too much work (to speak with Mourinho), we’ve had too much work since the beginning of the season, we don’t switch off, we’re always working to prepare ourselves, this is what it’s all about.

“It will be a chance to catch up after the game, but now I’m focused on what we did on Thursday, we will watch the game, there were players training in the afternoon and then we have to prepare on Friday and Saturday.”

Wolves have gone 11 league games without defeat – they haven’t had a better unbeaten run in the top flight since 1959 – and have lost only one of their past 16 Premier League home games, a 5-2 defeat against Chelsea in September (BBC Sport).