Mark McGhee admitted today there will never be a better time for Albion to play Wolves.

McGhee celebrates two years in charge of the Seagulls against his old club at Withdean tonight, with Wanderers in a form and injury crisis.

Glenn Hoddle's side were pre-season favourites for a return to the Premiership but a run of five games without a win has dropped them to tenth in the Championship, 14 points adrift of an automatic promotion place.

The sequence of poor results has been compounded for Hoddle by crippling injury problems, particularly up front.

"I thought it was a good time to play Ipswich on Saturday and, as much as I've got respect for them, it was an opportunity missed for us," McGhee said.

"Tonight is the same. Wolves will still be really difficult opposition for us but if we are going to beat them I think we will have as good a chance tonight as we will have at any stage in the season."

Although automatic promotion already looks beyond them, McGhee believes it is too early to write Wolves off for a play-off place.

"Watford and Luton are probably the two main surprise packages but the others like Palace, Leeds, Reading and Sheffield United were, for me, always going to be up there.

"Glenn has always had great self belief and if anything he talked it up. I think he was very confident, so in a sense they've put themselves under a little bit of pressure by not winning as many games as they had been but they have not been beaten often and that's important.

"When they have the likes of Carl Cort and Kenny Miller playing they will win games. At the moment they don't so they are finding it more difficult."

Miller, on target in both games against Albion last season, has joined Cort on the long-term casualty list after tearing a hamstring in Saturday's 3-1 defeat at Watford.

George Ndah is also injured, so Hoddle's only two fit strikers are 20-year-old Leon Clarke and Vio Ganea, who returns from a one-match ban to make his first away start for 18 months following knee surgery.

Ganea was sent off for two bookable offences in the recent home draw with Preston, the first of them for overdoing his celebrations when he equalised.

Hoddle tried to sign Chelsea's Carlton Cole on loan and he has also been linked with Wycombe's in-demand striker Nathan Tyson.

It is not only up front that Hoddle is dogged by injury difficulties. Paul Ince has been missing from midfield for most of the season with a thigh problem.

Goalkeeper Michael Oakes has also been hit by a mystery ailment, so Albion's Wayne Henderson is expected to be up against fellow Aston Villa loanee Stefan Postma, a Dutch giant.

Former Derby teenager Tom Huddlestone makes his second start after signing on loan for a month from Spurs.

The versatile Huddlestone, an England under-21 regular, is excited by his temporary move to Molineux.

"Wolves are a massive club in the Championship and I know Rob Edwards from when he was on loan at Derby," he said.

"I spoke to him and he was telling me that football-wise the club is amongst the best in the League.

"On last season's evidence I agree with him and it's just turning draws into wins that we need to do to be right up there."