Paul Lambert: Wolves must be more ruthless
Paul Lambert has called for Wolves to be more ruthless in front of goal as he plots a reversal in his team's fortunes.
Four league defeats in a row have dragged Wolves close to the Championship drop zone.
Losses to relegation rivals Burton Albion and Wigan Athletic as well as a derby defeat to Blues last Friday have quelled momentum garnered by an impressive January during which Wolves beat Stoke City, Liverpool, Villa and Barnsley.
Wolves travel to face high-flying Reading on Saturday and then visit Mick McCarthy's Ipswich Town the following Tuesday.
Lambert wants an improvement in both penalty areas, but said that scoring when his team were on top was something they would have to start doing.
"Being a nearly team doesn't get you results," he told the Express & Star.
"We had more chances (against Blues), 18 shots at goal, 12 were in the penalty box. It just shows you, it's not as if we're not creating, the problem is you have to finish it off.
"In the first half we had some good areas from set-plays but we never delivered, which was poor. That transpired into a first half where we never got a foothold in it.
"They score, which is a mistake, and for their second goal I thought our recovery was too slow.
"The sending off happens, we get more balls into the box but never took the chances.
"I've been on the other side of the coin and performances have been poor and you've been beaten heavily.
"This is a role reversal. I still think we're playing pretty well in sections of the games. The Newcastle, Wigan and Birmingham games we've dominated possession, but we've lost.
"The stats are there but we have to finish off the dominance we're getting.
"That's something we have to eradicate. When you're on top you have to finish teams off."
Wolves enjoyed 61 per cent possession against Blues, as well as 59 per cent against Wigan and 57 per cent against Newcastle.
That's a stat they're unlikely to dominate against Jaap Stam's possession-based Royals, who even in a 3-0 defeat to Brighton on Saturday had 63 per cent of the ball.
It was a similar story in the reverse fixture, a 2-0 win for Wolves in August, when they had 66 per cent possession. Lambert added: "It's important to start well. If teams sit off against us we have to come up with an idea to break them down.
"That seems to be happening, especially at home.
"We have to find a way. That's a process where you work on it in training, towards pre-season when we can get everyone really tuned into what we want.
"It's important we find the master trick of that. If they do sit deep what do we do?
"If someone gets sent off the best way to beat them with 10 men is go through the wide areas because it stretches the game.
"We got into some good wide areas on Friday but it's finishing it off.
"It's not like we didn't have chances, the Conor Coady one (against Blues) where it goes across the six-yard box, normally that's a tap in for
someone.
"We have to find the way to unlock that. But there's no quick fix – that's work on the training pitch and putting it into place.
"If there's one positive, we're dominating games possession-wise but we need to turn that possession into goals."