Tony Daley: Wolves' late bite down to hard work at training

Kenny Jackett's side have claimed five points with goals from the 85th minute onward over their last five games.

Daley, the club's head of sport science and conditioning, claims it proves the tough fitness work put in by players throughout the season is paying off.

"I think that is what is expected of us to be honest," he said. "We would be disappointed if we couldn't do that at this stage of the season.

"The whole idea of planning for pre-season and progressing through the phases of the season is to be able to go through 94/95 minutes strongly all the way through.

"It has been good to be able to do that recently and to show the players are putting the hard work in."

Wolves netted late winners against Derby and Bristol City, while Danny Batth netted a last-gasp leveller at Burnley last-time out.

Daley has been particularly impressed with the performance of players who either arrived late in the campaign, or have spent time away on loan.

He added: "It is the likes of Jack Price, George Saville, Bjorn Sigurdarson, Michal Zyro, who come back in after not playing or being injured and can show they can produce high levels in terms of the distance covered and the number of sprints.

"All that data is assessed and the lads should be proud of what they have achieved in keeping those levels. We all know that talent is really important in players – having that ability whether it is skill on the ball, tight control, long passing, scoring goals, and you have to be able to repeat that again and again and again.

"There is not as much point having a player with those attributes who can only do it for 'x' amount of time in a game or at 'x' stage of a season."

Daley is, however, all too aware that this has been a campaign marked with long-term injuries to key players.

Striker Nouha Dicko was ruled out for the campaign in September after tearing his cruciate ligament while Ethan Ebanks-Landell, Kortney Hause and Dave Edwards are among those who have had extended periods on the sideline.

Though many of those injuries could not have been prevented, Daley insists the club's medical and sport science teams are always looking for ways to improve.

"We always do think we can do something about injuries – we never rest on our laurels, as with anything else," he said. "We are very consistent in setting a very high standard with avoiding injuries, especially soft muscle injuries.

"We are always gutted when we get one of those because we have everything in place to try and reduce the risk. We haven't had many of those this season and a lot of the problem have been impact injuries or stress injuries which are very difficult to completely avoid. Unfortunately they are part and parcel of football, if they were avoidable then no team in the land would have injuries."