And another terrible week for Wolverhampton Wanderers comes to a close, writes Martin Swain.

Tottenham’s victory at Stoke at the weekend formally ended the club’s hopes of snaffling a Champions League spot while there is still no apparent interest from Fabio Capello in adding Jody Craddock to his World Cup plans.

I’m sure Molineux’s neighbours will forgive a little smugness among the gold and black fraternity this morning after, quite simply, Wolves finest hour as a Premier League team. Better than those Kenny Miller moments against Manchester United and Liverpool or that remarkable fightback against Leicester; better, too, than this season’s victories over Spurs.

All were warmly welcomed when they came along as isolated acts of defiance in the face of a gruelling battle against adversity. But last night’s victory at West Ham was different and not just because Wolves fans witnessed a polished and mature performance in a match of such obvious significance, complete with goals executed with Premier League quality.

What we saw last night, and what made it feel such a breakthrough occasion for the club, was a Wolves team actually enjoying itself at this level, an entirely new experience for players and supporters in the club’s otherwise arduous struggle to keep its head above the drowning line.

It would be monstrously premature for chickens to be counted just yet. Despite the enormous temptation that must have seized them, I can’t imagine any members of the Molineux hierarchy, recalling the oafish insensitivity of certain Birmingham City directors after a key promotion victory at Molineux in 2007, indulging in the same behaviour at West Ham last night now the boot was very firmly on the other foot.

And manager Mick McCarthy knows the immense advances of the last 10 days will be squandered if, metaphorically speaking, his players fall into the trap of lighting up cigars, leaning back in their chairs and sticking their feet on the desk.

But with Wolves now seven points clear of the relegation zone – eight if you throw in their significantly better goal difference – it is impossible to resist the notion that his team have broken the back of the survival struggle.

What’s equally significant – and again this cuts to last night’s display – is that they are climbing clear on the back of their own merits and not simply because Portsmouth are a busted flush off the pitch and Burnley and Hull on it.

Wolves fans only have to remember their emotions and predictions before this triplet of away games to assess the scale of the team’s achievements. Indeed, after victory at Burnley but before last Saturday’s game at Villa, McCarthy was asked if he would have taken a three-point total from the claret and blue trilogy and his answer was unhesitating: “Yes.”

To have reaped seven is an outstanding performance which has taken Wolves to within touching distance of safety.

But there have been more gains that those measured by points. What we saw last night was a team whose collective self-esteem has grown hugely over this sequence of shudderingly vital games, a team whose character and ability have reached new heights under the fiercest scrutiny the Premier League can provide.

Yes, it looks as if Wolves are going to stay in the Premier League. Perhaps more significantly, it at last looks as if they belong there.