On the pitch, evidence of a promotion performance wasn’t overpowering at Molineux on Saturday.

Thankfully for Wolves, boss Mick McCarthy provided the powerful message the fans wanted to hear afterwards.

He said: “I desperately want to get promoted. I want to win promotion with Wolves, I want to be in the Premier League with Wolves and I want to stay with Wolves.

“I want to make Wolves a Premier League club. I don’t give a flying flute about anyone else, in here (press), out there (fans), or in the boardroom – it’s me and the players.”

It was stirring stuff from a manager who has at times apologised for his ‘boring’ pre-match soundbites, where he refuses to talk up his team’s prospects for fear of cranking up expectations too much.

It was a pity his players couldn’t quite replicate the quality of a team on the brink of promotion to the Premier League.

But then again, in winning another tight, scrappy, nervy affair, maybe they merely emphasised what this promotion-winning lark is all about – results.

Winning promotion isn’t all about playing well – if that were the case, maybe free-flowing Swansea or indeed Charlton would be leading the way.

No, it’s purely and simply about putting points on the board, especially at this stage of the season.

There’s no denying Wolves have done that better than any other team in the Championship this season.

With seven games left, they remain three points clear at the top having won more matches and scored more goals than any other team in the division.

These are the cold, hard facts and, despite never looking as solid or as confident as they did in their recent wins over Crystal Palace and Sheffield Wednesday on their travels, they look to have enough wind in their sails and sufficient momentum to continue their upsurge that has brought them three wins in a four-match unbeaten run.

Of course, nothing is certain and with Reading playing one of their two games in hand tomorrow night – they travel to Doncaster looking for only their second win in nine – and Cardiff entertaining Watford in one of their three, the table might not look as healthy for Wolves by the time they go to Nottingham Forest on Saturday in the first of three trips in their next four matches.

Crucially, though, Wolves have the points in hand and despite the tensions which continue to grip the fanbase, the team are in the position everyone else would swap with.

At this point, the Molineux masses deserve a mention, because the manner in which they stuck by their team on Saturday – as well as the healthy, 14,000-plus take-up on the Early Bird season ticket promotion – suggests they are already buying into their manager’s ambitions.

“We shall not be moved” sang the South Bank in the tense countdown to the final whistle and, at this rate, their team won’t be.

Staying with the crowd, a subtle change that may have gone unnoticed on Saturday just might have provided the platform for a less fretful Molineux in the coming weeks.

There was a real sense of the fans getting – and staying – behind the team, in spite of Wolves’ struggles to break down the second side to string 10 men behind the ball inside five days.

The way they remained behind McCarthy’s young guns suggested a growing understanding of the difficulties the team is facing in these tense final weeks of the campaign.

Whether the players sensed a more compassionate backdrop to their efforts wasn’t clear, but there was a noticeable conviction to continue to stick to their established gameplan of working the ball across the pitch – and backwards if necessary – to work an opening.

Like McCarthy said afterwards, it’s difficult to produce a defence-splitting pass with 18 players crammed into the last third of the pitch.

But, at the weekend, Wolves enjoyed a slice of what all successful teams enjoy – luck.

It first manifested itself with the 69th minute penalty awarded, for what Charlton’s makeshift defender Matt Holland revealed was a push on Christophe Berra.

Thanks Matt, because no-one else – including both managers – knew why referee Graham Laws had given it.

Unfortunately for Wolves, Sylvan Ebanks-Blake was denied from the spot for the second time in three attempts, after goalkeeper Rob Elliot guessed right and tipped away his side-footed attempt.

But the competition to ‘Give Wolves a Scrappy Goal’ award was finally won 10 minutes later when poor Holland – a long-time servant to McCarthy for the Republic of Ireland – was the unwitting accomplice to the winner.

Goodness knows who’s going to finally claim Wolves’ second goal, but the main thing from their viewpoint was that it went in.

Holland later admitted Chris Iwelumo’s flick-on from Dave Jones’ corner hit both him and Ebanks-Blake before looping over the line.

But I reckon Holland’s admission means that despite refusing to take the plaudits for it at the time, Ebanks-Blake should now claim it – before Iwelumo does.

In a game almost devoid of goalmouth action, Iwelumo was the stand-out performer.

How Wolves craved for his power during their slump, when the Scotland international looked a pale shadow of the barnstorming hitman who bulldozed his way through Championship opposition for the first four months of the season.

Thankfully for Wolves, that formidable animal has returned, and on Saturday he finally got the goal – the 99th of his career – to end his 17-match drought from November 25.

It’s debatable whether he’s scored any better in gold and black either, his sweeping, first-time volley going in off the inside of the post after Dave Edwards had helped on Michael Kightly’s left-footed chip nine minutes before the break.

But the impressive Zheng Zhi had other ideas and he equalised six minutes after the interval, when he beat goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey at his near post from 20 yards – the first goal he had conceded in 410 minutes.

To their credit, Wolves didn’t panic and Kightly (twice) and half-time substitute Karl Henry finished poorly either side of the penalty before the winner that secured their fourth double of the season.

Defeat for Reading was almost as important as the win for Wolves – leaving them closing in on McCarthy’s mission statement.

By Tim Nash