Marcus Hahnemann won’t settle for anything other than being first choice at Molineux – that’s the verdict of ex-Wolves boss Colin Lee.

Lee offered Hahnemann a contract when he was Walsall manager, only for the American to sign for Reading.

And the former Molineux chief, now chief executive at Torquay, believes boss Mick McCarthy has invested wisely in providing competition for Wayne Hennessey and Carl Ikeme.

“Mick knows he needs experience and if thought he was signing Marcus to be second choice, he’s signed the wrong person,” said Lee, who managed Wolves from 1998-2000 after three years as assistant boss.

“Mick has looked at it and thought he needed to put pressure on the goalkeeping position, and he’s got someone in for nothing who can do that.

“I don’t think Mick would have taken him unless he thought he could be his number one.

“Marcus is a competitor and he won’t want to be out of the team because he’s a strong personality.

“He’s a confident lad which you have to be to be a decent keeper.

“He gets excellent distance on his kicks and he delivers the ball early, so if Mick is looking to counter-attack quickly, he’s excellent at that.

“Marcus kicks it ‘side on’ with accuracy, and sometimes you have to play different ways and look to soak up pressure and hit teams on the break, so his influence could be vital in the way Wolves play next season.

“He has the ability to see an early chance.

“He’s a big talker and he’s very loud and he’ll demand stuff from his defenders.”

While Lee believes Wolves have a good keeper in Hahnemann, he shares the view of many that the best keeper on Wolves’ books would have also been England’s by now.

“I feel really sorry for Matt Murray, who was a young kid at Wolves when I was there,” he said.

“If he could have stayed injury-free, he would have been England’s goalkeeper by now.

“You can talk about keepers and Marcus is good, but Matt is top class.

“Matt’s a little bit like David James, who I gave a debut to at Watford.

“These two are the best I have worked with.”