This week’s signings of Geoffrey Bia Mujangi and Adlene Guedioura mean that manager Mick McCarthy has now recruited a complete team since his squad clinched promotion, writes Martin Swain.

His all new XI would see Marcus Hahnemann in goal, a back four of Greg Halford, Ronald Zubar, Michael Mancienne and Andrew Surman, a midfield of the two newcomers from Charleroi, Segundo Castillas and Nenad Milijas and a front pairing of Kevin Doyle and Stefan Maierhofer.

It is a group which comes accompanied by a series of ticks (Doyle and Hahnemann most obviously) question marks (Surman, Maierhofer, Castillas, even Milijas perhaps) and, unfortunately, crosses (Halford) depending on your take of their contributions to date.

But at a total outlay of £16m, I think it fair to say it’s not what Wolves fans were expecting.

And you cannot blame them. Apart from Steve Morgan’s bullish addresses before this season began, we had Chief Exec Jez Moxey making his now well-documented “we won’t do an Albion” speech 10 months ago.

To be fair, Wolves haven’t. Albion spent more than £24m in transfer fees trying to stay in the top flight under Tony Mowbray.

But Wolves, just like Albion before them, are discovering just how difficult it is to improve on what you already have within the confines of your limited spending power.

Is this an indication of an endemic lack of ambition in the Molineux boardroom? Or is it more to do with the fact that while Wolves are willing to invest more money, they cannot find anyone to spend it on?

Perhaps sensing that the recruitment of two little-known footballers from the Belgian league was not what supporters were hoping for, Moxey tackled the issue in last night’s programme notes.

The club, he insisted, had been involved in negotiations for a player which, had they been successful, would have resulted in transfer records being broken. This it is safe to assume was a hint at Wolves’ interest in Middlesbrough’s Adam Johnson.

Now such words can be easy when you know the player is not going to be signed. Who can forget Doug Ellis’s classic revelation that he had once attempted to double Villa’s spending record by signing Alan Shearer, a statement made in an effort to silence allegations that he lacked ambition. It would have carried more clout if when Ellis made the announcement, Shearer had not already agreed to go to Newcastle for £2m-£3m more than Villa had apparently offered.

But Wolves, I believe, are trying to fulfil those pre-season pledges but discovering once more that, without an inexhaustible level of funds, what you want to do and what you can do are two very different things.

Johnson was simply never going to come to Molineux, mainly because he knows he has bigger fish to fry and there would be a chance that he might be back in the Championship six months later.

Equally, it is now clear that Wolves will pursue their interest in Stephen Hunt right to the final minutes of this current transfer window. Will they get him? Certainly not before Saturday’s game with Hunt’s club Hull City – it is far too sensitive a deal to be completed before then.

But the real problem for Moxey and Morgan is how far they go in an era when they have each stressed the importance of not over-spending either in fees or wages. They have set their limits on what they feel is the value of their targets and refused to yield.

As a result, some have slipped the net (Peterborough’s Aaron McLean and Burnley’s Kyle Lafferty for example) but many shrewd, good value deals have been completed.

Their caution is well founded. Wolves are operating, as all newly-promoted mid-range English clubs will, in a dangerous area of the transfer market, where one agent’s unpolished diamond is another’s mercenary-waster.

There’s a reason why the players offered to Wolves and their comparative clubs are not playing for Villa/Everton/Sunderland never mind United/Chelsea/Arsenal and they usually aren’t very good ones. That’s why some of McCarthy’s recruits have worked while others have been disappointing – so far at any rate.

But the low-key arrivals of Mujangi and Guedioura – and if they can stretch defences as much as the locals attempting to pronounce their names there should be something to look forward to – have put the carefully-guarded principles of the 3Ms under its fiercest pressure to date.

Could Hunt be the difference between staying up and slipping back down? If they decide ‘yes’, how far are they prepared to go to clinch such a contentious signing?

It is not a question of ambition but a balancing act of good sense against desperate necessity and all watched by 28,000 commentators. I wish them luck.