Dave Edwards: Wolves face crucial period to secure top flight safety

It's a pivotal stage of the season and the upcoming West Ham game falls into the same category, considering Ipswich and Leicester both face tough away games at Bournemouth and Manchester City.

If Wolves can go and get a win against West Ham, then all of a sudden that takes so much pressure off that Ipswich game. If you expect Ipswich to go down to Bournemouth and get beaten, then Wolves will be 12 points clear of them going into that game, which would be huge.

A draw against West Ham would not be the worst result in the world but I think it's a winnable game against an inconsistent Hammers side.

They changed manager from Julen Lopetegui to Graham Potter. There's a distinct change in style and sometimes you see it click and other times it hasn't. 

We have a team that can beat West Ham. Player for player it's just as good, if not better, and we're in a good run of form. That's why it's such an important game.

Ipswich and Leicester both have more tough games coming up, so Wolves can seal their Premier League safety in the coming weeks and I hope they take it with both hands. 

The bookies all think Wolves will survive, Opta have Wolves at 83 per cent of finishing 17th, but a win over West Ham would cut the gap to 16th to just five points.

It will give Wolves something really tangible they can go after and finish the season strongly, which is so important. We've seen in recent seasons how Wolves have finished the season very poorly and it's rolled into the next season. It happened under Bruno Lage and Gary O'Neil.

I'm sure Vitor Pereira wants to gain some momentum in the last quarter of the season, picking up results and trying to push some teams above. Although it's not going to make a huge difference to the overall picture at the end of the season, it will put the players and the fans in a much better place going into next season.

Hopefully, with a good summer of recruitment, Wolves can really be in a good place.

It's about looking at every single game individually and West Ham next Tuesday is a winnable game, there's no doubt about that. It would take the pressure off going into a potentially very difficult game at Ipswich.

It's now all been clarified that Matheus Cunha will miss the Ipswich match, but the last two games have shown there is life without him. We can play well, we can control games. 

Obviously, he's going to make us better because he's one of the best in the league at what he does, but we do have players who can step up to the plate.

Providing there are no injuries while on international duty, I fully expect the same starting XI to take on West Ham and this team will be looking to continue their form.

We can then welcome Matheus Cunha back for the Tottenham game with no relegation worries at all.

If Wolves can navigate the next few games and get themselves into a position where Premier League safety is secure, then you want to start to look ahead to next season.

We have lots of young players who have gained Premier League experience this year, but it is so hard to put these players into Premier League matches when you're playing for points that are really important to you.

In particular, I hope we can see a little bit more of Pedro Lima before the end of the season. He's so young but has so much potential.

A few starts for him would stand him in good stead for next year as another option at right-wing-back.

Nasser Djiga is another one we could see more of in the next few weeks and also Rodrigo Gomes, who is arguably a starter when he's fully fit, but it would be great for him to get a run of games at the back end of the season.

This can only happen if Wolves can pick up more points and be in a comfortable position.