Blog: A defence of the defence for Wolves

Wolves' back four has this season come under fire on multiple occasions for being fragile, but is this really the case?

As we now know, Wolves missed out on sixth spot in the Championship by four goals,

Scoring just four more goals would have placed us above Mick McCarthy's Ipswich Town on goals scored.

Whilst Wolves picked up the record number of points to finish seventh place, it seems to have been an uphill struggle to claw back the gap to the top six made during the dreadful run in November.

As the season drew closer to its conclusion, Wolves goal difference stood out against the top seven by not standing out – it was distinctly average.

Out of all of the top eight clubs, Wolves' goal difference was the lowest at plus 14, having conceded 56.

Only one team in the top eight had a lower total of goals scored than Wolves' 70, Middlesbrough (68).

And only one team had conceded more in the top eight (Wolves and Derby 56 apiece) in Brentford (59).

On face value, it is a lack of supremacy at both ends of the pitch that led to Wolves finishing in a probably deserved position of seventh.

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However, it may only a fine tuning that needs to be made to the defence to turn it into a much more solid blockade.

Wolves kept eighteen clean sheets in the Championship – just under 40 per cent of the matches resulted in a clean sheet.

One goal in each of these games would equate to 54 points, gained just by scoring a single goal in each of these matches.

This sort of record puts far less pressure on the attacking players as – potentially – eighteen goals could equate to eighteen wins.

Only Middlesbrough (21) and Bournemouth (19) kept more clean sheets than Wolves in the Championship.

This shows that when Wolves did concede, they conceded a higher number in each game. In the 28 games that they conceded in, they conceded two per game on average.

Boss Kenny Jackett puts a lot of emphasis on keeping the goals conceded down 'to zeros and ones' which Wolves obviously haven't been doing consistently.

Had Wolves not have lost 5-0 to Derby, 3-0 to Nottingham Forest and 4-0 to Brentford in straight games in November, or cut out even half of these goals, they would have finished inside the top six.

A lot of the goals that Wolves have conceded this season have been down to individual rather than systematic errors – wayward back-passes, allowing the ball to bounce, own goals – and these can be cut out.

Of the seven most used defenders this season (Batth, Stearman, Golbourne, Doherty, Iorfa, Hause, Ebanks-Landell), the average age is 23.

Experience will only allow this young group to improve and perhaps signing one older head would be enough to bolster the ranks.

Iorfa and Hause came into the Wolves side at a time when the slip in form was arrested and Iorfa, in particular, has excelled and even offers an attacking threat.

Danny Batth has also chipped in with four goals whilst Ebanks-Landell has two – nearly ten percent of the total league goals scored this season.

Having goal-scoring defenders is a great bonus. Jody Craddock finished runner up in Wolves' top goal scorers in 2009-10, notably pulling back a 2-0 deficit away to Stoke to draw 2-2 with a brace.

This defence has the potential to be very solid and it's not as far away as some might think.