Nuno confident Wolves can bounce back from struggles in front of goal

Nuno Espirito Santo has backed goal-shy Wolves to rediscover their scoring touch.

They go to Southampton on Sunday as one of the lowest scorers in the Premier League.

Only the bottom four have netted fewer than Wolves, who have just 23 goals in 23 games.

They have failed to score in four of their last five matches – including Thursday’s 2-0 FA Cup defeat to the Saints.

Raul Jimenez remains their joint-top scorer alongside Pedro Neto with four despite not playing since fracturing his skull in November but Nuno believes the problems go deeper than his forwards.

“It is a lot of things, not only the strikers,” he said.

“It is the lines of the balls, the consistency of our possession. It is about having possession higher up the pitch, not always coming to the last line to rotate the ball.

“We didn’t have many problems before. We have faced tough, tough situations and we have been able to bounce back, like we will do this time again.

“We have very high standards. We know our players are good players and competitive players. We have to keep them at the high standard of performances.

“You are asking me now what can we do to get the best out of them? We are a good team. We have to solve all the situations because it is not just that we are not scoring, we are also conceding very poor goals.

“You have to play to the whistle. Why did we stop?”

Wolves have the chance of immediate revenge against the Saints after their fifth-round defeat at Molineux following second-half goals from Danny Ings and Stuart Armstrong.

Nuno rested several key players, including skipper Conor Coady, who are likely to return at St Mary’s although Willy Boly, Daniel Podence and Marcal remain out as Wolves search for just a second win in 11 top-flight games.

“Consistency is one of the most difficult things to achieve in football. You want to achieve consistency,” said Nuno, with Wolves 14th.

“When you do well, you want to consistently achieve these performances. We have not been consistent.

“What we need to do first is perform better in each game, then we can search for the consistency in our game.”

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