Fer Lopez wins EFL Goal of the Month for derby winner that ended Wolves' 15-year wait

Wolves midfielder Fer Lopez has been named the EFL’s inaugural Goal Hero of the Month after his decisive finish in September’s Black Country derby gave Wolves a 1-0 Championship win over West Brom — their first league victory in the fixture in 15 years.

The 22-year-old seized on a misjudged pass from Nat Phillips to dink the ball over West Brom goalkeeper Max O’Leary in the 50th minute, then wheeled away to replicate Matheus Cunha’s famous celebration from the clubs’ FA Cup meeting in 2024. It was the first Black Country derby in the league since 2021, when both sides were still in the Premier League.

Lopez revealed the celebration had been planned before kick-off. “Before the game, an official showed me a video of Cunha that I hadn’t seen, and I told him that if I scored I had to do that too,” he said. “It was a very special moment. It was a very important game for the fans, and we did half of the job — we need to do the other half when we play them away.”

O’Leary had been outstanding throughout but had no answer to Lopez’s quick thinking. The Spaniard was characteristically modest about the finish itself. “I think the finish was the easy part. The difficult part was to go one step ahead, to anticipate the pass. When I had the ball there, I never thought I was going to miss.”

The goal sent Wolves fourth in the Championship as they push for an immediate return to the Premier League. Lopez acknowledged the weight of that ambition, paying tribute to the club’s history. “Wolves is a very historical club — they’ve got trophies, they’ve been in the first football league. They were in the Premier League eight years in a row, so it was a shame going down, but we have to go straight back up again.”

Lopez joined Wolves from Celta Vigo in 2025 but did not immediately nail down a starting place, spending the second half of last season on loan back in Spain. He has since found his form emphatically in the second tier, scoring four goals in his first seven Championship appearances.

“At the beginning it was very difficult — I was living in Spain with my family and everything,” he said. “I came here for the first time and it was difficult being by myself, adapting to the culture and English football. I think that made me grow, that made me stronger.”