Wolves boss Nuno Espirito Santo has praised Rui Patricio’s focus as a £15million deal with Sporting Lisbon edges closer.

The goalkeeper has been at the centre of a transfer wrangle since he walked out of Sporting, along with eight other players, in the summer following disruption at the club – which included a training ground attack on the squad by masked intruders.

Sporting accused Patricio, who won Euro 2016 with Portugal, of a breach of contract and complained to FIFA.

He joined Wolves on a four-year deal but the clubs have held positive talks and he is now likely to cost around £15million after Sporting initially wanted £50million.

Nuno said: “He’s a very mature player, a lot of experience and besides that, he’s a man, he knows how to handle things.

“He can separate things and you must separate things – when you train, when you compete and all the matters which surround you, you have to go away from that and I think he can do it.

“He’s doing his job, he’s a goalkeeper and must prevent balls to go inside of the goal. He’s doing a job and doing it well.

“As a club Wolves have excellent behaviour in this situation. Anything else will be said by the club.”

Nuno has a fully fit squad again ahead of Saturday’s visit of Watford with Wolves unbeaten in their last six Premier League games to sit seventh in the table.

The boss added: “Hard work, the way the boys have been working since the beginning, has allowed us to see the team is improving.

“The expectations don’t change. Now we think about tomorrow and the table doesn’t mean anything to us at all.

“When they do well we say they do well and when they don’t we work harder. We are the same group of people who want to go game-by-game.”