And now for something completely different? Or will it be more of the same?

Having climbed over the barrier that is a second season in the Premier League, Wolves are now faced with the task of building for a third by adding the ingredients which they hope will prevent any last day dramas next May.

Mick McCarthy is the man charged with the task of threading together the many different strands which have to be considered in player movement – team requirements, cost, availability and suitability – and he knows he has to get it right.

The words are easily said, the delivery is that much harder.

But McCarthy begins his sixth campaign in charge with his principles firmly embedded within the framework of his squad – unity, determination, strength in the face of adversity.

The Wolves boss has promoted a character-driven re-building of Molineux personnel which has exorcised the 1990s culture of ageing mercenaries taking Sir Jack Hayward for a final pay-day and given back the club its sense of self-esteem.

McCarthy said: “Well, we all know how to get better don’t we? You get loads of players in. But it’s not as easy to do as it is to say it.

“We’ve been very, very lucky – clever, smart – call it what you will, that we have signed players who have all fitted into the ethos of the club.

“They’re all prepared to put a shift in. They’re great lads, I’ve never heard anybody talk about our club in disparaging terms.

“But we all know to grow and get better it gets harder. To grow and get better it means to keep signing players and the wage bill gets higher. That’s the rich tapestry of being a football club.

“Not all the signings have been good signings. Some have been not what I wanted. It’s cost us but that’s part of this game.

“Sometimes, a manager is in a place, somebody else comes in and two or three look like different players.

“But I know what I want.”

That is as much as you will get out of him, of course, because McCarthy is as discreet as Harry Redknapp is loose-tongued.

But, there is work to be done, for Wolves have ambitions beyond mere survival in the Premier League.

The relentless demand for improvement  means that, for all the strides taken under his leadership, there are still those who question whether McCarthy’s Wolves can add the dimensions to their game which will lift them above the scrap for survival.

The stats show that in the season just completed no team – not Manchester United, Arsenal or any of the big hitters – put more crosses into the opposition area then McCarthy’s.

That would seem to illuminate a reliance on wing play as the chief route to the opposition goal but it has not been particularly fruitful.

There are lies, damn lies and statistics, of course, but according to the numbers, only relegated and goal-shy Birmingham – 314 shots, 121 on target – carried a weaker threat to the opposition than Wolves’ seasonal output of 327 shots on goal, of which 139 were on target. It certainly pales alongside neighbours Albion’s ratio of 446-182.

For his part, the manager points out that sometimes, you come out on the wrong end of football’s roll of the dice and this has to be considered.

He said: “I don’t believe I came away from any of our games this season thinking ‘phew, we were lucky to win that one’ or ‘we have really nicked three points today.’

“Go through the wins – United, played well, earned it. Chelsea, played well, deserved it. Manchester City played well, deserved it. West Brom, Villa, Stoke, Sunderland, Birmingham – none were lucky wins.

“I guess the season was summed up by the 95th minute at Bolton to the end of the Manchester United game which followed. I had to apologise for my behaviour after that Bolton match but I was so furious.

“I think I only got like that on two occasions this season – Bolton away and United away. You can’t be like that all the time.

“But of course a few days later they only go out and beat a Manchester United team going for a record. It says everything about the character of these players.

“I’ve been here five years now and a lot of the players have been with me for that time so of course, the motivational aspect becomes harder.

“We’ve been successful. And if you’ve been successful, then it suggests the methods work. That’s why they still listen.”

By Martin Swain