Wolves boss Mick McCarthy wants to sign several players of a similar quality to Liverpool defender Sami Hyypia after deciding established Premier League talent is the only route to survival.

The manager has targeted the Bosman market and has revealed an interest in bringing Hyypia to Molineux.

McCarthy is already putting the feelers out in the Premier League for the players Wolves need to survive next season.

The 50-year-old sees established Premier League talent as the route to staying in the top flight.

He said: “I’ve been going out to see games and looking at players. We need some better players in here – we can’t be fishing around finding them from everywhere – people that haven’t played in the Premier League.

“I’ve tried doing it with that at Sunderland. You have to have some who have played in the Premier League.

“It’s just a case of putting feelers out at the moment. We’ve been looking at Premier League players and looking at the squads and seeing who’s available, because we really do need some Premier League quality.”

McCarthy is desperate to add top-flight experience with Jody Craddock and Dave Jones the only two current players in the Championship title-winning squad to have sampled the Premier League.

Both were relegated the last time they played there, Craddock with Wolves in 2003-04 and Jones last season with Derby.

The manager said: “At the minute, we’ve got Jody but how long ago was that? And we’ve got Dave Jones and that was one season at Derby when they were relegated.

“We need some Premier League players.”

McCarthy revealed he takes each target to chairman Steve Morgan and chief executive Jez Moxey, rather than be handed a specific pot of money.

But he warned fans signing players will be a slow process.

The Wolves boss said: “It’s never worked like that – we’ll sit down and talk to Jez and to Steve when I have got targets on an individual basis.

“That hasn’t really happened yet. Most of the clubs are still playing. You get no sense out of them at the moment – you can ring up and they’ll say, ‘yes, we’ll do this or that’ but we don’t know yet.”