It could be a lot worse at Wolves

Wolves' Sporting Star columnist John Lalley has warned critics that life could be worse at Molineux as fans call for the club to 'break the bank' in the window.

A growing number of Wolves fans are voicing their opinion that it is time for our owner Steve Morgan to start some serious speculation by investing heavily in transfer fees and wages. Supporters of all clubs routinely demand hefty investments, with the financial consequences left to look after themselves.

There are an increasing number of clubs currently regretting that they undertook such a policy. I would not have begrudged Morgan his dream of owning Liverpool rather than Wolves, if Sheikh Mansour had spent his £210million gaining a 90 per cent share at Molineux rather than at Middle Eastlands!

No doubt, we would be employing higher profile recruits this transfer window and not been chancing our arm with a couple of hopeful recruits from the Belgian top-flight if that had come to pass. But you have to live within your means and, on occasions, be grateful for small mercies.

Regardless of what he achieves for Wolves, a section of our fans will always castigate Jez Moxey until the day he drives down Waterloo Road for the last time. In fact, I'm amazed he hasn't copped the flak and been blamed for Sylvan Ebanks-Blake failing to score any goals!

But give me Moxey every time if the alternative is stomaching Manchester City's chief executive, Mr Garry Cook. It was toe-clenching embarrassment watching him make an obnoxious spectacle of himself last week, boasting with all the arrogant bluster of a man who finds himself endlessly fascinating at a Fans Forum in New York, of all places!

Microphone in hand, smug and belligerent in equal measure, he resembled a second rate stand up comic dragged off Rochdale Road as a warm-up for Bernard Manning. He spouted the certainty that City is set to become 'the biggest and best club in the world' and that absolutely nothing can stop this inevitable and inexorable rise to the summit of world domination.

Glasses raised and spirits soaring, Cook's grinning audience roared its approval and reassured that he was preaching to the converted, City's biggest big shot assured the light blue half of the Big Apple 'when, not if we are at Wembley having beaten United again' the trophy is assured.

With such an abundant history of indignity to draw upon, in the shadow of Old Trafford, you might expect of all people, the chief executive officer of Manchester City to display just a modicum of caution and humility.

But, not a bit of it, the man in the sharp suit who a year ago accused AC Milan of 'bottling' the transfer of Kaka and who, after just weeks ago conducting himself shamefully in the worst face-the-press conference in living memory on the day Mark Hughes was sacked, was too busy relishing the delight of being drenched in money.

Cook's performance on the day Hughes departed was a mixture of bumbling contradictions, evasion, squirming and wriggling. Finally, confounded by his own confusion, he ranted angrily at legitimate questions in the most contemptible 'shoot the messenger' mode imaginable. It was a truly lamentable episode.

What with Manchester United's Gary Neville and City's Carlos Tevez conducting their own feud by way of word and rude gesture, it is scant wonder that the Assistant Chief Constable of Manchester police has entered the fray to warn the warring parties about their civic responsibilities before the second leg of the League Cup semi-final with the threat of violence brewing in the city.

United are £700million in debt and saddled with the Glazers, Liverpool are stymied under tom Hicks and George Gillett, West Ham are facing a monumental debt with David Sullivan at the helm, who began life at Upton Park bragging that he was prepared to pay Ruud van Nisteirooy a hundred grand a week, Hull are virtually broke and Portsmouth are an absolute basket case.

Life at Molineux could be a lot worse! After all, no so-called 'big club' ever went closer to going to the wall than we did. And the Bhatti era wasn't a lifetime ago either. Wolves, more than any other Premier League club should know a thing or two about the pain of going bust, because that's exactly what we did.

Talk of the same fate happening to another club might be dismissed as scaremongering but we managed it, no trouble and were literally within minutes of going the whole hog and finishing up as extinct as the dodo.

It was heartbreaking and we should never forget it, soul destroying to see the very lifeblood of Wolves seeping away. By God, we would have welcomed some financial restraint back then!

Remember Jez Moxey joining in the Mexican wave when Southampton - another salutary lesson in how not to run a football club - were drubbing us 6-0? I thought the old boy was going crackers under the strain. He wasn't and the club was fine too.

We are not having a great time on the pitch at present, but we can still pull through and let's be grateful we don't have to endure the likes of Garry Cook to front the operation.