Wolves' Kevin Doyle backed to find 'eye of the tiger'

Kevin Doyle was today backed to rediscover the 'eye of the tiger' to inspire Wolves to safety.

Boss Dean Saunders wants the Ireland international to tap into his inner belief ahead of tonight's crunch clash at Championship relegation rivals Barnsley.

Doyle is suffering a 12-game drought in front of goal, while fellow forward Bjorn Sigurdarson has scored just three times since a £2.4m move from Lillestrom last summer and Sylvan Ebanks-Blake has 11 goals.

Saunders admitted Doyle's lack of goals will be playing on the striker's mind but wants all his hitmen to fire.

"It used to affect me if I didn't score for four or five games," said the boss.

"My game revolved around scoring goals – unfortunately you can't teach people the instinct of being in the right place.

"We've got players here with the knack. You always have an eye for a goal but you can lose your eye of the tiger. I've still got mine but if you lose your eye of the tiger you are not actually moving to where the ball is going. It is belief and confidence. When you are scoring you have got the eye of the tiger - everywhere you run the ball bounces in front of you.

"Kevin is an experienced player. He knows you have patches. It's not just Kevin - Bjorn Sigurdarson and Sylvan Ebanks-Blake have had a go.

"I'm expecting them all to do it no matter who the coach is. How many coaches did Alan Shearer have? They weren't all telling him the same thing."

Doyle has hit five this season but none since scoring twice in the 4-1 win at Bristol City in December.

Saunders added: "John Toshack said to me once: 'You can be the best coach, motivator in the world and the best organiser but you've got to buy a goal. What he meant was you have to pay for strikers.

"It is belief. When you are scoring you expect the ball to come to you and when you aren't you hope."

Meanwhile, Wolves skipper Karl Henry today echoed the view of his manager and admitted they cannot afford to lose tonight.

Henry said: "It's another huge game but they are all huge games now. We certainly can't be losing to teams around us.

"We need to try to win the game, but we certainly need to not get beaten, we must keep a clean sheet and to do that we have to keep doing what we've been doing in the last couple of games.

"A win can't come soon enough. Hopefully we will kick on and go from there."

Wolves are winless in 10 games in all competitions – a run that began under former manager Stale Solbakken.

But Henry insisted that depressing sequence has not drained belief from the Molineux dressing room.

"It's just about remaining positive and having belief we're going about things the right way," he said.