Wolves boss Mick McCarthy insists staying in the Premier League next season will match the achievement of winning the Championship.

The title winners have been made favourites for the drop with fellow promoted sides Birmingham and Burnley.

Hull and Stoke were expected to go down last season, but the manager believes following the duo in retaining top flight status is the marker he is looking to repeat.

He said: “Finishing 17th in the league is like winning the Championship, and you should have seen how happy we were winning the Championship last season!

“That means staying in the Premier League. I’ll settle for what Hull and Stoke brought to the Premier League.

“We want to stay up. Newly-promoted managers to the Premier League get asked ‘would you settle for 17th?’ and they maybe say ‘We’re not so sure, we want to be a bit more positive than that’.

“But of course we’d accept 17th, we want to stay in the Premier League.

“Is it a lofty ambition to finish 17th? We’re setting off to do our best.”

Wolves are fighting the tide of recent history having failed to stay up last time they were in the top flight, the same as McCarthy with Sunderland the last time he was there in 2005/06.