IT concerns me when teams start to talk about ‘luck’ as if it was a substance you can define and hold in your palm like a penny.

I’m sure every football fan in the land has spent at least some time wondering ‘what if?’

If Diego Maradona’s handball had been spotted, would England have won the World Cup in 1986? If Frank Lampard’s goal had been given against Germany would the Golden Generation have failed so miserably? It is virtually a national pastime.

It seems strange that in a game now broken down into miniscule pieces by analysts with more statistics than ever thought possible, that such a strange theoretical force can still get a mention.

Over at Wanderers they are certainly not immune.

Back when Owen Coyle’s side toppled out of the Premier League bad fortune was blamed as if it had swooped down on the then-Britannia Stadium and blown the ball into the back of the net at Stoke.

The squad had undeniably had a bad run of injuries, and had lost Fabrice Muamba to circumstances which bordered on the incredible, yet I’ll bet if we analyse games through the course of that season there are any number of human errors which led to dropped points. Losing a 2-0 lead to West Brom in the penultimate game springs to my mind but I’m sure there were others.

Every team in Christendom, when experiencing a bad run of results, looks in some part to blame fortune. It is human nature. The alternative would be to pick apart every single negative aspect of a game and pin it to a mistake made by a player, or group of players, and that would do no good for morale.

The more luck is blamed, however, the more culpability slips away. Individual responsibility diminishes and you get to the stage where bigger mistakes are overlooked. That cannot be allowed to happen at Wanderers right now.

There are factors which have been beyond Phil Parkinson’s control which have contributed to his team’s poor start to the season – injuries and the long-standing transfer restrictions being just two. But privately he will appreciate there are aspects that can be improved on the training ground.

In fairness to the manager, he has not played the ‘luck card’ as often as some of his predecessors. He has tried to keep his team focussed on what they can affect and has said on a number of occasions that just ‘wanting things to happen’ won’t necessarily mean they get done.

It is vital his players heed that warning because unless they are completely on message, we might as well pack up and go home.

Several years ago the ex-England boss Graham Taylor once had a pop at me on the radio for making excuses for Wanderers’ manager, then Coyle, who had been complaining about a particularly bad run of injuries.

“That kind of talk will get you relegated!” he snapped, with many, many years of experience.

And he was right. It was only after Wanderers dropped out of the Premier League that I realised there had not been enough culpability in that camp. Some appreciated the situation they were in, and dug deep, but tactical errors were made and not highlighted.

Two years ago, as Neil Lennon’s team hurtled towards relegation amid a mountain of financial problems I grew tired of the mantra ‘there’s too much quality in the squad.’ It was another emotional crutch which, frankly, was untrue. There were good players in that team but not enough of them.

Wanderers find themselves facing up at the rest of the Championship again now and questions are again being asked about whether they can survive. I still feel this squad has an advantage over the one two years ago in that it is more tightly-knit, led by a manager who will believes he can stay up. And I say that clinging on to the only theoretical force that matters at the moment and that is faith.