McCarthy's Wolves hungry for the top

The Barnsley-born boss's furious touchline protest was a bone of contention as Frankie Simek was sent off for a late tackle on Michael McIndoe in a 2-2 draw in March.

McIndoe has now gone, to Bristol City, but Wolves' ambitions and McCarthy's frankness remain as the Molineux club get set to take on Wednesday on Sunday (1.30pm).

The Wolves chief makes his goal plain: "Top six has got to be the least we're aiming for.

"We've got to aim for the top two and we'll soon see whether that is a realistic aim.

"I've got no problem with the expectation at all. We'll have a bigger and hopefully better squad to help us do it."

His team did not make the best of starts, suffering a 2-1 home defeat by relegated Watford last Saturday.

But the scale of the task facing Wednesday may be gauged by the reaction to that result of Hornets manager Adie Boothroyd. His team were playing in the Premiership last season but he felt that they were second best to Wolves in many respects.:

"Wolves were far better than us for much of the game and you can't brush that under the carpet," he said.

"If we can finish our season above Wolves I think we will have done very well because they are a very good side and Mick McCarthy has done a marvellous job at Molineux."

McCarthy kept only three places in his team unchanged for Wednesday night's Carling Cup tie against Bradford and they beat the League Two outfit 2-1 with the help of a goal from Freddy Eastwood on his debut.

Eastwood, a 1.1m buy who scored in Southend's 3-2 defeat at Hillsborough in February, has been catching up on match fitness after coming back from a back injury.

Other Wolves signings in the summer were centre half Darren Ward (Crystal Palace, 750,000), striker Stephen Elliott (Sunderland), winger Matt Jarvis (Gillingham), defender Michael Gray (Blackburn), keeper Graham Stack (Reading, loan) and full back Kevin Foley (Luton).

Danger men on Sunday are likely to be young winger Michael Kightly and striker Andy Keogh, one of Brian Laws' star players when he was at Scunthorpe.

Keogh hit an injury-time equaliser at Hillsborough - a sickener for Wednesday's 10 men.

He was a revelation at Molineux after his 600,000 move from Scunthorpe, showing intelligent running and high work-rate, and will now be looking to improve on his goalscoring after netting five times in 17 Wolves appearances.

Kightly too was a stunning success lasty season, after being signed for only 25,000 from non-league club Grays last November. He scored six goals in 19 Wolves games – an impressive record that saw him linked with Aston Villa and Manchester United before the season ended.

But Kightly is no longer an unknown quantity to the rest of the division and will have to raise his game to match his key-man status.

Wolves look stronger than last season - when they finished fifth and lost 4-2 on aggregate to West Brom in the play-off semi-finals.

Summer signings have given them a strength in depth that they did not have last season.

The club are fancied by Midlands experts to achieve McCarthy’s target of the top six, and expectations among their fans have been fuelled by the takeover completed by Cheshire-based property magnate Steve Morgan.

Morgan has bought Sir Jack Hayward’s shares in the club’s holding company for a nominal 10, and given the club a 30m investment.

Hayward, 84, bought a controlling interest in Wolves for 2m in 1990 and pumped an estimated 50m into the club.

He has also waived 38m owed to him by the club in loans.

Morgan, aged 54, said: "I remember the days when Wolves were the greatest club in the land and, although times have changed, we are going to do our best to take Wolves back to where they were.”