Wolves boss Mick McCarthy has insisted staying in the Premier League was vital to keep his team together after admitting – “Relegation splits teams up.”

The manager has spent the last 31 months rebuilding the club from a side tipped to fight a relegation battle to League One to a Championship-winning outfit battling to stay in the Premier League.

But while convinced Wolves will stay up, the 51-year-old admits the drop would almost certainly mean a shake-up of the playing staff.

McCarthy admitted recently the club would struggle to hold on Kevin Doyle in the summer if a top club came chasing the record £6.5million signing, and others would surely follow if the club was relegated.

The Wolves boss said: “If we did go down, the club would survive no matter what. But relegation splits teams up. It causes problems. It changes lots of things.

“Players for example – some might want to be nicked out of the place, some clubs would hand pick them, some would want to leave. You don’t always know whether the team or the staff survive it.

“It can destroy the ambience, the camaraderie and the team spirit which might have to be built again.”

But McCarthy stressed relegation would not affect the long term stability of the club.

He said: “It does have a massive affect on some clubs, but I don’t think that would be the case here. This club isn’t unstable, it doesn’t have any problems either financially or emotionally or anything.

“For the club it’s not about survival because the club goes on and on – it’s run brilliantly from top to bottom. But teams do suffer – they get changed.

“Albion are doing fine, but the team and the manager has changed. It doesn’t always work out well after relegation does it?”

Wolves go into Saturday’s clash at third bottom Bolton a point and two places clear of the drop zone.

McCarthy admits survival is vitally important.

He said: “I’m not even thinking about relegation. In relation to staying up, the words ‘have to’ are too strong, because you end up getting desperate and I don’t think we can afford to become desperate.

“But for all of us it’s vitally important, because we want to be in here.”