While Wolves’ depleted side were suffering a 3-0 loss against Chelsea on Saturday afternoon, Dion Sanderson was inspiring Birmingham City to a 3-0 win in the Championship.

The Wolves academy graduate was sent on loan to the Blues this summer despite a lack of defensive options at Molineux, and the Old Gold are now paying the price.

During the summer, Bruno Lage felt it best to send the 22-year-old back on loan to St Andrew’s, with Conor Coady and Willy Boly following him out of the door after Romain Saiss had already left.

This left Wolves with very few central defenders at the club, as only Nathan Collins was brought in, which left just the inexperienced Toti and Yerson Mosquera available as backup options to the preferred duo of Collins and Max Kilman.

Wolves have already emphasised why this was a poor decision, as Collins’ sending off against Manchester City first forced Lage to deploy Ruben Neves at centre-back in the defeat against West Ham, before Toti started at Stamford Bridge on Saturday.

The Old Gold could have had a more experienced option available in Sanderson, as the young defender has already enjoyed loan spells with Birmingham, Sunderland, Cardiff and QPR in the past.

During his time with Sunderland, Sanderson earned a lot of praise from former manager Lee Johnson.

He said: “He’s a centre-half and at his age level he is an absolute Rolls-Royce.

“Obviously he is stepping up to men’s football and when you do that you come up against different challenges, as Dion did yesterday and he came through that.

“In the Championship when he was on loan at Cardiff he played at right-back, which suited the style they were playing at that point, quite a direct style when he had Sean Morrison next to him.

“He has competence on the ball as a right-back, he’s very good on the ball as a centre-half, and obviously he has still got a bit of physical maturation still to come.”

He has been a vital member of Birmingham’s side this season, playing every minute in the Championship, and he produced another superb display on Saturday, scoring and keeping a clean sheet in a 3-0 win over Bristol City, with WhoScored awarding him a strong average rating of 6.85 for the season so far.

While Lage’s mistake may haunt Wolves this season, the incoming manager at Molineux – which looks likely to be recently sacked Sevilla boss Julen Lopetegui – will know that they can save millions on a potential Coady replacement by giving Sanderson a much-deserved chance in the first team.