Saunders sees signs of hope at Wolves

The Wolves manager is still seeking his first win after six games in which four draws have been his best Championship results so far.

And tomorrow they run into a Barnsley side who have cranked up the relegation pressure with a remarkable revival since a new year regime change which brought David Flitcroft to the Oakwell hot-seat.

Barnsley reached the FA Cup quarter-finals to continue a staggering run of seven wins and a draw from their last eight games, leaving Wolves to face one of the hottest teams in the country – and one which could leapfrog them out of the bottom three.

But Saunders was buoyed by the goalless stalemate at Derby on Saturday and the impressive debut of his first signing, Kaspars Gorkss.

"You could see the difference in the team," said Saunders. "They battled away and gave it everything and we looked a lot stronger.

"Kaspars Gorkss came in and made a difference. I thought the two centre-backs did really well – they were brave and strong.

"Kaspars coming in is the first building block for me to first stay in this league and then try to win it next year.

"We need points and we need to start getting wins but it's not disastrous to get a draw at Derby.

"It's another point for us and looking at the other results it will help us."

But Saunders acknowledged that the struggle of once-proven forwards to reassert themselves continues to hold back the progress.

He tried a combination of Kevin Doyle and Bjorn Sigurdarsson at Derby but to no benefit with a subdued Doyle eventually giving way to Sylvan Ebanks-Blake.

"We just needed to put away the chances that came our way," he added.

"We created a fair few chances and also had some balls headed back into the box where we just didn't sniff out the opportunity.

"It maybe just needed someone to anticipate and poke the ball in the net with that killer touch in front of goal. We just didn't have it."