Mick McCarthy is demanding his Wolver-hampton Wanderers side return to their miserly defensive ways when they head to the Lancashire coast to face Blackpool tonight.

The Wolves boss has been alarmed that his usually watertight defence has leaked seven goals in the last two games and he is demanding an improvement against Simon Grayson's side.

Previously, Wanderers had struggled in the opposition penalty area but while his strikers have suddenly found their form, especially Andy Keogh, his side have started to look very shaky defensively.

However, the spate of lapses at the back has not changed McCarthy's view that his side are still good enough for the play-offs and he refused to blame his current centre-back pairing of Rob Edwards and Darren Ward.

"Are we good enough to get in the promotion shake-up? Yes we are," he said. "There are definitely things that need to be better the defending over the last two games hasn't been great, but we're very much in that promotion shake-up.

"The automatic promotion places are still a realistic challenge for us and still one that we have to try to get to. It gets harder the further we fall away from it, but we've still got to go for it.

"Some might say I'm talking nonsense, but I hope nobody would expect us to give up on them until they are mathematically impossible. We've played well the last two games and haven't been trounced as the scorelines suggest [A 3-0 defeat at Watford and Saturday's 4-2 setback against Stoke City at Molineux].

"But no-one is ever interested in any reasons or excuses or discussions after you lose games and I'm not going to try tojustify it. The defending has not been like us, we had the tightest defence in the division recently.

"There have been some costly errors but I'm not going to isolate anyone. It's a team game and there are 11 players out there.

"People tend to look for scapegoats in this game and I'm not one who will ever offer them up. Obviously, in Jody Craddock, Gary Breen and Neil Collins, we've lost three lads who were playing in the back four and that doesn't help but we just have to get on with it and try to win games, that's all we can do.

"Blackpool are a side who are very competitive and play good football so we know we're going to be in for another tough game."

Bloomfield Road has been a relatively happy hunting ground for Wolves, unbeaten on their last five visits. The last time Wanderers were beaten in the seaside town was in the League Cup in the 1968-69 season.

Wolves will be boosted by the return of midfielder Seyi Olofinjana after his Africa Cup of Nations adventure. The Nigeria international returned to training yesterday after being granted a few days off to recover from his exertions at the championships.

Breen has also returned to training and could feature in the side after pulling out of last Saturday's match with a tight hamstring. If the Republic of Ireland international suffers no reaction to the injury, he will travel with the team.

Fellow Irish midfielder Darron Gibson will also be back in the squad after spending time in Ireland to attend the funeral of his cousin.

However, Wolves will still be without Collins and Craddock, as well as strikers Stephen Ward and Michael Kightly.

Meanwhile, McCarthy has confirmed that Mark Little's loan spell at Northampton Town has been extended.