Souness: Fans just fantastic

The 53-year-old high-roller, bidding to become the new king of Molineux in a £20m takeover from Sir Jack Hayward, has been given a 90 per cent approval rating from Wolves fans.

Our Express & Star text vote had hundreds of readers jamming the lines to register their verdict on the Souness proposal - and 90.3 per cent gave him a firm thumbs up with only 9.7 saying 'no' to the Scot.

And the Liverpool and Scotland legend said: "That's mighty encouraging to hear and I'd like to pass on my thanks to those who voted in favour.

"And you can tell the other nine per cent that I''m pretty sure we will win them over when they know a little more about who's involved and what we've got planned!"Wolves fans will have to wait to discover the 'flesh on the bones' of the Souness plan after a major breakthrough in talks last night concluded with confidentiality clauses being signed.

After meeting with his backers yesterday, the 53-year-old Scot drew a line under a messy previous 48 hours in which he had found himself at loggerheads with chief executive Jez Moxey.

After the two men had issued conflicting accounts of events since Souness accepted Moxey's invitation to attend the New Year's Day game at Molineux, the former Rangers, Liverpool and Newcastle boss met with his backers and phoned Moxey to shortly before 5pm to resolve their differences and find a way forward.

That led to Souness tabling a written offer and issuing a statement which read: "Following my verbal offer, both myself and my partners, who are all British-born and based, have made a written offer for Wolverhampton Wanderers.

"This is being considered by the board and both parties have agreed to keep the details of these negotiations confidential."

Moxey responded: "I can confirm that following the signing of confidentiality agreements this evening, we have now received a formal written offer for the club on behalf of Graeme Souness and others.

"Both parties have agreed not to make any further public comments."

Souness does not have the field to himself, and, despite last night's breakthrough, Wolves fans face a lengthy wait that is unlikely to be concluded in time to have an impact on this season.

The club have already staged preliminary talks with a second consortium, while I understand that the Souness episode has already lured another football figure into making his advances, again at the head of a group of investors.

But Souness is the only one bold enough to break cover and was clearly buoyed that, despite having never played for any of this region's clubs, our readers have given him such a show of support.

"Obviously, we cannot talk about anything to do with the deal now, but I'm sure the Wolves fans know that I'm of a generation who knew about the magic of Molineux," he said.

"The very first game I attended in England, as a 15-year-old Scottish schoolboy international, was at Wolves.

"My father was with me and it was the last game of the season - and I'm sure it was Tottenham way back in the late Sixties.

"Wolves wanted to sign me, but I had a few clubs interested and in the end opted to go elsewhere. But that was my first ever experience of football in England and it got me hooked."

* Souness is right - Wolves beat Tottenham 2-1 at the end of the 1967-68 season.