A defiant Mick McCarthy insists it would be remiss of anyone to write off Wolves' chances of Barclays Premier League survival - particularly if they can reproduce the sort of performance shown at Birmingham.

Wolves are back in the bottom three for the first time in seven weeks after yesterday's crushing derby defeat, ahead of a tough next assignment at home to Tottenham on Wednesday.

And yet had they clung on to Kevin Doyle's goal and not conceded twice to Kevin Phillips late on at St Andrew's, they would have found themselves up to 14^th in the league, symptomatic of just how tight it is at the bottom of the table.

"We've been written off before," said the boss.

"But if we play like we did against Birmingham in the rest of our games I don't think we can be written off.

"If we played like we did at Palace you could wipe your hands off it and say we're down.

"But when you've got that amount of spirit and play as we did against Birmingham it would be remiss of anyone to do it.

"I know it will happen though but I can't do anything about it.

"I know we are in the bottom three but it's still very tight down there and if we play like we have today and against Hull and Liverpool we've got a chance.

"We've beaten Spurs once so let's do it again on our patch."

The Wolves crowd will have a major part to play in Wednesday night's game, and the boss felt plenty of empathy with the loud and vociferous travelling following at St Andrew's yesterday afternoon.

"Of course it's hard to take for the fans," he said.

"I feel as sorry for them as anybody - they were brilliant yesterday and our away support has been terrific all season.

"They deserve to see their team up the league and we deserved more yesterday.

"But it doesn't just happen, you've got to make it happen through working hard and seeing the game out."

If there was another positive amid yesterday's disappointment it arrived courtesy of the near half-hour cameo from new signing Adlene Guedioura.

The French midfielder produced two decent efforts on goal, the second a long-distance shot which flashed just over the bar, and gave his manager plenty of food for thought.

"He'll be a good player for us," said Mick.

"We've just had to get him up to speed because he was injured last weekend and only came backtowards the end of the week.

"He'll be getting games for us because I'm really pleased with him."