Like a bored, bemused child in the backseat of the family estate, a fan cried out for help: “Is it nearly full time yet?”

Another asked if there was still time left in the window to sign Mark Fotheringham, while the rest pursued a conversation away from the scene – a sea of faded orange seats telling its own story.

And amid it all, that gargantuan North Bank monstrosity yawned over the remaining few, in Steve Morgan’s tribute to Dr Frankenstein.

At least the spin might just subside for a day or two after this latest Molineux horror show.

Who would have possibly predicted a goal for this lump?

No more spiel about Frimpong the saviour, with Mick McCarthy putting pay to our one final flickering hope of the season by playing him deeper than a sweeper and nullifying youthful exuberance.

The 18 year-old’s verve and attacking vigour dispensed with, as our boss ordered him to stay away from Liverpool’s half at all costs. ‘Defensive midfield signing’ Eggert Jonsson was instead employed further up the pitch, but lacked an ounce of attacking ability to make a difference anyway.

Michael Kightly, our other last lingering hope, was nowhere near his Villa vintage, and so Mick McCarthy’s best laid plan was out the window.

In the absence of 2008 Championship winning influence, we hoofed the ball long, and gave the ball away.

With tactics like that, it made no difference that we’d had 12 days off and Liverpool barely any, as we were more jaded, lethargic and listless having chased the ball in a style that’s known as ‘commitment.’

Aside from a great early Edwards opening that he really should have done better with, Pepe Reina may as well pictured Sky Sports News on one of our seamless video walls. Not that they work either.

The entire course of the game would be decided on whether Liverpool were good enough in the final third.

In the first half they weren’t. In the second half, they were.

Gal shy Andy Carroll scored the most inevitable goal ever, thanks to a great assist from our ball boy who threw Craig Bellamy the ball like a love sick puppy.

With everyone still up the other end of the pitch seconds after our corner, the ball boy should now be loaned out to Nottingham Forest forthwith as punishment, for not leaving it where it was.

Hennessey, having repelled every other effort on goal before all this, then morphed into Wolfie the Wolf, doing what our furry friend did for 10 minutes at half time when faced with a clutch of six year-olds…Dive over the ball in slow motion.

Not that Wayne could be blamed. He was the only player on the pitch who could hold his head up, having made numerous saves.

Roger Johnson then got a bit angry with those hardcore, vigilante thugs in the Billy Wright family enclosure, pointing and glaring at all those ‘mindless idiots’ who were clearly to blame for the entire fiasco.

Kuyt then scored a third to give the scoreline the reflection it deserved, before Sylvan smashed the post from 30 yards to prompt the first genuine cheer of the night.

And that was that.

But in keeping with every other facet of this miserable season, our club is at its comatose worst, flipping over the ‘closed’ sign, switching off the lights and imploring those clocks to strike 12.

Wolves' transfer strategy in two words: Mark Fotheringham

Such a strategy underpins a stadium ‘redevelopment’ and an inexorable plummet to the Premier League basement, so is anyone remotely surprised that we’re not even shopping in it?

Some might call it spin, but after delving a little deeper, the spin appears to have eat itself entirely when dissecting our pitiful transfer policy, which ranks as one of the most insular in living memory.

According to Mick McCarthy himself, players will not be approached or even considered if:

1. They are on more money than current squad members. Source: E & S; 27.01.12: ‘McCarthy believes Wolves are unlikely to have a situation where a new signing is on far more money than the rest of the dressing room.’

2. They are foreign. Source: Mick McCarthy direct quote; 25.01.12: “If you take anyone from abroad, you really are taking a chance on them because they don’t settle in straightaway.”

3. They are early to mid 30 year-olds. Source: E & S; 26.01.12: ‘But at 34, his (Kevin Davies) age and his £35,000-a-week wages count heavily against him fitting into Wolves’ long-established ‘young and hungry’ policy.’

4. Mick can’t get rid of current deadwood in his squad. Source: E & S; 27.01.12: ‘McCarthy can’t guarantee him (Mame Diouf) regular football with three senior strikers and Sam Vokes on the books.’

With all of these quite preposterous reasons for not entertaining the notion of purchasing any player with a modicum of Premier League skill, I trawled the official Fantasy Football League to dream an impossible dream.

It was there that I saw the endless list of player names, in much the same way I see a Thomas Cook holiday brochure or the latest issue of Autosport.

Around 95 per cent of players literally unattainable for those four points above, which are absurdly inapplicable to Pardew, Rogers, Lambert, Hodgson, Pulis, Hughes, Coyle, O’Neill, Jol and co and solely plausible to Mick McCarthy.

Hypothetically, had our scouts actually identified Vorm, Krul, Assou-Ekotto, Kompany, Skrtel, Vermaelen, Cabaye, Tiote, Silva, Djeko, Nani, Sessegnon, Odemwingie (etc, etc, etc, etc) at their native clubs before moving to England, we would consider NONE of them for the idiocy already outlined.

The only players we could be linked with, taking those four points into consideration, might be Steve Morison, Danny Graham and one or two others.

But they would never consider leaving Millwall and Watford for us these days, when the far more progressive cities of Norwich and Swansea lie in wait.

To hamstring our survival chances yet further – in another self imposed brainwave – no youth players from our own academy will be considered either (see Elliot Bennett and Mark Davies, not to mention Danny Batth, Scott Malone and David Davis.)

With strategic thinking like this, is it any wonder the Sky Sports presenters are boycotting the WV1 region on transfer deadline day?

And is it any wonder we are taking SPL and Cypriot league journeyman Mark Fotheringham on trial and an alleged interest in some Fleetwood Town striker that nobody else has heard of?

With the senseless, skewed spin that is reserved solely for our club, I’d literally expect nothing less.

Beneath the glare of the biggest of white elephants the team in white won, inspired by a home grown hero whose local rivals now call their own.

One team playing in the Premier League while the other plays in a parallel world altogether, losing for the umpteenth time on the pitch as the most feckless building project of all is shelved in favour of 50 odd houses off it.

Only Wolves could cobble together such a script, featuring a fabricated line about Compton progression, when our very own manager steadfastly objects to the very notion in the first place.

Not Mark Davies for example, who was leap-frogging Bolton above us with a man-of-the-match display at the Reebok, instead of maintaining our momentum once Frimpong departed.

If it wasn’t so chronically sad we’d all laugh.

Darren Bent tells us how many stands will be built at Molineux

But when a current board member boasts about signing off the North Bank redevelopment three days before the last day of last season, we really shouldn’t be surprised.

A monstrosity of a stand which Jez Moxey said would look ‘ridiculous’ to begin with and a team which Steve Morgan, ‘with a crystal ball, might have strengthened.’

Talk about planning.

The biggest irony of all was that for a 30 minute spell, we looked as good as we have all season, on the day we plunged to 19^th position.

Michael Kightly proved why the club has stayed patient over his injury lay-off for so long, terrorising Villa and scoring a wonderful goal to partly erase the memory of Berra’s early indecision for the penalty.

The wonderfully mobile Frimpong exuded confidence and talent, controlling the midfield with Henry with right back Kevin Foley reminding us why he won a player of the year award as a right back. Funny that.

We thoroughly deserved a 2-1 lead at the break through Edwards’ flick from Johnson’s header and if anything, will regret profligacy for not being at least 4-1 ahead instead.

Both Fletcher and Edwards shot tamely at Given beforehand, when a yard either side would have yielded more joy.

But in a game of two halves, Wolves failed to reappear after the break and either looked slow out of the blocks, or just bereft of experience in actually defending a lead.

Keane’s equaliser underlined two things:

1. Our chronic inability to keep the ball, this time underlined by Matt Jarvis
2. Wayne Hennessey’s not-so-happy knack at conceding long range goals, later admitting he was to blame for this one

From then on the wheels came off and a game that we previously looked in control of took a turn for the worse when Frimpong was stretchered off.

With Stephen Warnock already brought on for Agbonlahor to specifically shackle Kightly, we suddenly looked laboured.

And when referee Michaal Oliver gleefully sent off Henry after first impeding a quick free kick and then ignoring a 5 second Albrighton offence, you sensed the game was heading one way.

That our very own Robbie Keane confirmed such a thought was either cruel beyond compare, or just rewards for a club with warped priorities.

With Blues beating us in the cup, our stadium redevelopment shelved and a housing development taking preference, Mick McCarthy could have been talking about the last seven days as a Wolves fan instead of these painful 90 minutes.

“Everything that could go wrong did go wrong.”

“After all,” the Wolves fan went on to argue, “Mick has spent £49 million since we got promoted and look at the Championship plodders he persists on picking.”

More to invest?

The husky, hoarse supporter made a pretty valid point, even if he was screaming down the phone while making it.

Or did he? The £64,000 dollar question this window appears to centre around Mick’s £49 million spending spree in the three years before it opened.

While there are many sticks to beat Mick McCarthy with right now, his record in the transfer market might not be the most obvious one.

Admittedly some signings have been barely explainable, let alone fathomable, but is this all down to Mick, or more down to the fact that we rarely pay the wages of our manager’s number one targets, meaning he settles for a Surman instead of a Sidwell. Or a Griffiths over a Gardner.

Here is a team of players Mick is known to have wanted, but lost out on due to either a) paltry personal terms or b) player didn’t want to come.

Danny Higginbotham (left back)

In Mick’s second full season in 2007, he tried to sign Higginbotham as a 29 year-old with a £1.25 million fee agreed. He opted for Stoke City instead. His performances for Stoke up until this season would suggest he would have ‘done a job.’

Steven Taylor (centre back)

While on a work jaunt to the Soccer AM studios a few months ago, a friend told me we were on the brink of signing him a year or two before. So close was Taylor to signing that he almost put pen to paper. Understandably, he stayed put in the end, being a lifelong Toon fan.

Scott Dann (centre back)

In 2009 we could smell the liniment on his legs as he underwent a medical at Compton. He’d be coming up the M6 when he’d come (yee-hah), he’d be driving down the M6 when he left for St Andrew’s shortly afterwards.

 Nathanial Clyne (right back)

Virtually two years ago to the day, Crystal Palace’s administrators accepted a bid for Clyne, around the £1 million mark. Either he didn’t like our terms, or he didn’t like our team, being as he couldn’t believe his useless mate Danny Butterfield bagged three past us weeks earlier.

Adam Johnson (left midfield)

We bid around £6.5 million for him when at Middlesbrough, but he stupidly chose Man City instead, in a blatant career backward step! Not before saying he was flattered by our interest, which was nice of him.

Moxey said: We got permission from Middlesbrough to speak to Johnson and we made the best offer, which would have broken our transfer record, paying a lot more than Manchester City.”

Steve Sidwell (centre midfield)

Apparently, Greg Halford put the kibosh on this one by blurting out we were signing the ginger hot head from Villa. No sooner had Halford tweeted than Fulham gazumped us, to the delight of Mick McCarthy who (should have) said: “I thought Halford was safer in the stands than out on the pitch, but he is still doing damage in row B of the Billy Wright Stand, the twat.”

Craig Gardner (centre midfield)

When Blues were relegated last season, Jez Moxey was rubbing his hands at the assets he could strip off them, in the bargain basement he knows best. He still hadn’t fathomed that good players need paying though, as Gardner opted for Sunderland for more money despite wanting to come here. Mick also tried to get him on loan this season, to no avail.

Wes Hoolahan (attacking midfield / right?)

We all know Mick loves an Irishman, and none more so than Wes Hoolahan in 2008 when he played for Blackpool. He joined Norwich for around £700,000 instead of us, as we wouldn’t pay up, allegedly. Judging by his impressive showing at Molineux the other week, Mick can rightly feel narked about missing out, as he’d clearly spotted a good ‘un there.

Andy Carroll (striker)

Yes, yes, laugh as you might, but Mick wanted him when he was on loan at Preston in 2007, when he was barely worth £3 quid, let alone £30 million! More proof that he can spot them.

McCarthy said: “I saw him at Preston when he was out on loan and we asked about him.

“We asked about him last year. We didn’t get close at all. We made a bid but it didn’t get anywhere.”

Shane Long (striker)

According to Tim Nash, Mick was keen on the striker before his summer move to Albion, but the club would only sanction it if Kevin Doyle was sold. As it was, Doyler signed a new deal and we all had to endure the bloodbath at the Hawthorns as good old Shane ran rings around Rodger.

The Bench

David Vaughan

Wolves were one of many clubs chasing the former Blackpool midfielder when his contract expired in the summer, but he skanked us for Sunderland. It appeared we’d dodged a bullet based on the Welshman’s early season form, but he’s been firing a few of his own rockets since O’Neill took over at the Stadium of Light.

Robbie Keane

It’s a shame that so many stifle a yawn when Robbie’s name is mentioned, such is the frequency of it at this time of year.

In what couldn’t possibly be seen as a cynical ploy to convince us that we were serious about our first season in the Premier League, Jez Moxey said we genuinely attempted to get him while at Spurs.

Apparently we were prepared to pay his £70,000 wages too!

Moxey said: “We asked about Robbie Keane and I spoke to Tottenham on a couple of occasions. We knew what his wages were and we would have done that but he wasn’t going to come to us.”

Nicky Maynard

We’ve been linked with Maynard for what seems an eternity but nothing has ever come of it. With the striker out of contract in the summer and Bristol City looking to cash-in before he leaves for nothing, there’s a deal to be done. The question is, will the club back Mick with the funds to finally bring him in or will he become a permanent member of the nearly men?

So while Mick has indeed spent £49 million on players of varying degrees of quality, should the question really be about Mick’s judgement in the transfer market?

Or should it be about whether the club should back him with a requisite wage structure instead?

The preceding season, John Terry got his sending off against Man City withdrawn despite lunging in on their striker Jo on the halfway line.

Nenad Milijas wasn’t so fortunate for little old Wolves though, as his clean, fair challenge on Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta is still deemed to be a red card offence, despite video footage and every single pundit across the country thinking otherwise.

The two Chelsea players happened to be playing for their country you see, while the bloke from Serbia was just daring to play for lowly Wolves at Arsenal.

It’s no wonder FIFA think the FA are a xenophobic bunch of hypocrites, when only last month they were appealing Wayne Rooney’s crude thigh raking kick against Montenegro.

Milijas punished for a fair tackle

At least we have learned one thing for certain during this twisted decision to uphold Stuart Attwell’s attempt to pevert the course of justice at the Emirates Stadium.

Namely, that the FA are a spineless, corrupt organisation who place pecking order over impartiality.

If our red card case was seen before a Magistrate, the court clerk would have thrown the hearing out for wasting everyone’s time.

On past crimes alone, Stuart Attwell would have been the man in the dock for his latest example of incompetence and not us, only weeks after blundering at White Hart Lane when sending off Gary Cahill.

Only three seasons after awarding a goal at Vicarage Road that never even existed.

But this is the Premier League world we live in folks.

A world where fair play and self deprecating hard graft by both manager and players is penalised, yet incessant Ryan Shawcross-style haranguing is applauded.

After Dick Turpin conquered against Newcastle at Molineux this season (Mark Halsey), Anthony Taylor was next to turn fair play on its head by refusing to send off Woodgate for Stoke when playing at the same place.

Coincidence? Add in the following from the 2010/11 season off the top of my head:

1. James Perch trip on Jarvis at home to Newcastle while winning 1-0. No penalty.
2. Gallas assault on Jarvis at White Hart Lane in 6 yard box while winning 1-0. No penalty.
3. Stephen Warnock pre-meditated studs-up challenge for Villa not earning second yellow, let alone red. Warnock sets up Heskey for the winner.
4. Fabregas scything, stretcher inducing challenge on Ward for Arsenal at Molineux. No red, Fabregas sets up second goal.
5. Stearman headed, winning goal against Spurs disallowed at Molineux when punched in head by Gomez. Free kick awarded to Spurs.

I could add an endless list of howlers from the season before, when we were shafted more times than a rent boy on an initiation; such was our own induction to the world’s ‘greatest league.’

(Dunne rugby tackle on Doyle at home to Villa – no penalty; Wilson catching the ball for Portsmouth at home – no penalty; Fellaini assault on Doyle at Everton – no free kick and Everton then score)

Can anyone name one decision we have got in our favour in all this time?

And all the while, our stoic, honest manager turns the other cheek and shakes each referee’s hand as they walk off the pitch to daub another indiscretion on the dressing room wall for the next cheat to laugh at.

Pulis and Warnock decide go to work on the 4^th official from kick off instead, in their unique interpretation of the Respect the Ref campaign.

It’s no wonder Stephen Hunt says we should start playing the game ‘properly’ like every other club does, in an attempt to level up a surface which is rapidly becoming unplayable.

If Mick McCarthy had any bollocks, he’d be saying the same thing right now and Steve Morgan would be bankrolling every single forthcoming fine.

It might pain the FA and the Premier League to admit it, but John Terry wasn’t the first centre half to win 100 caps for his country (He was the first to screw a teammate’s wife and call a fellow pro a f**king black c**t though)

Billy Wright CBE was, and he wore the gold shirt of Wolverhampton Wanderers.

The same Wolverhampton Wanderers that stuck floodlights on their stands when no other club had the inclination.

Floodlights to capture nights of European football that the great Stan Cullis dreamed up, which Stuart Attwell’s chosen few are still dining out on today.

If the FA and the Premier League would prefer to treat our gold with distain while masturbating over Sheikh Mansour’s, then let them.

But not before we’ve let them know exactly how we all feel about it.

Please join me in emailing and telephoning the FA’s hotline to report incidents of discrimination.

Email: FootballForAll@TheFA.com 0800 085 0508

Any festive spirit melted like piddle-ridden snow when I realised my treasured Ford Focus needed significant investment to maintain its roadworthy status.

Too many miles on the clock you see.

Clocking up the miles

Previously reliable filters and brake pads are packing up under the strain of the modern day commute.

A bit like Mick McCarthy’s Wolves team, which should really be no worse than it was in 2009/10 when the sum of its parts are assessed.

Unfortunately however, it is.

Take Kevin Doyle, the best lone centre forward I have had the pleasure of watching in a Wolves shirt, who has since been thrashed to the point of write-off.

For a third successive season, he has been running frantically to stand still, as have one or two others in a gold shirt.

Forget the misleading soundbites that we are just about better off than at this stage last season, because we are clearly not.

Comparing last season’s corresponding fixtures to this, we are four points worse off right now  -  and nine if you factor in this season’s two point total from the three promoted teams at home compared to a seven point haul from last season’s relegated outfits at Molineux.

In other words, we are like my Ford Focus, which used to fly through its MOT tests but no longer has the engine to replicate past performances.

Only Ronald Zubar, Stephen Fletcher and Matt Jarvis (and Hennessey of course) look anything like Premier League quality these days.

It is no coincidence, bearing in mind they have far more fuel in their tanks than so many of their team mates.

And thereby lies the tale for Mick McCarthy and his admirable – if not backfiring – team of workaholics.

Mark McGhee’s fatal flaw was his great big gob, Graham Taylor’s was an England skeleton in his closet while Colin Lee’s was a signing in the shape of Robert Taylor.

It is a measure of Mick McCarthy as a man that his fatal flaw is honest hard work.

Like my trusted Ford Focus, there have been some memorable journeys that I’ll always be indebted to, but three years of full throttle, 90 minute outings are evidently unsustainable.

Not without a hefty repair bill, or a sportier new model altogether.

Unfortunately for us all, we can’t get the opening stages of this fixture back, just like we can’t rewind the clock to rectify the wretched second half showing on Saturday.

 In an often pulsating game with 23 shots on target, the one big paradox is that there’s nothing much to talk about on the pitch.

Not quite poor enough for the ‘Mick Out’ brigade to shout too loudly, and not quite good enough to get the three points.

Gercha! Thumping header from Zubar

Just stuck in 17^th place for what feels like a lifetime and a tasteless crumb of comfort through that little word called ‘if.’

Despite the woeful Adam Hammill late header, the Fletcher offside decision and the hopeless performance of Roger Johnson, there is nothing much left to see here folks.

Everything that happens from now on is largely immaterial in comparison to the moving and shaking that simply has to happen in January.

We all know that the players are a stoic, committed bunch and we all know they will sweat blood for the cause.

What I know on last night’s showing is that with three quality additions in January, we will become a decent Premier League team.

Our second half performance was as progressive as I can remember and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute – until Norwich scored a thoroughly preventable goal that no other team in this league would ever get caught out with.

It was naive, soft, weak and it underlines why we will get relegated unless something is done in January.

If Nedem Onoura comes in to partner the quite brilliant Christophe Berra (and that was an understatement) we will shore up our defence immeasurably.

If Kenwyne Jones is signed to partner Steven Fletcher, then the goals will be scored far more freely.

And if the speed of Lewis McGugan replaces the one-paced Hunt and offsets the near-unplayable Matt Jarvis, then we will mount more attacks than ever.

The big if now is whether Steve Morgan will make these deals – or similar signings of this ilk – a reality come January 1.

If he doesn’t, then he doesn’t need me to tell him where we’ll end up.

One team, full of pre-meditated antagonism, stretching the laws of decency to breaking point, while the other turned the other cheek.

One perplexed managed looked on passively, while his counterpart’s hate-ridden face frantically chewed gum to quell the bile inside.

The shellsuited personification that is Tony Pulis hurled more expletives at the fourth official as bottles of water on the turf.

He swore black was white, instructed every one of his gargantuan team to do likewise and verbally abused the fourth official more times than a Burslem wife beater on Stella.

Kind of makes a mockery of that spineless FA campaign don’t you think, when Stoke’s pre-planned hostility is fawned over by a gutless referee, who spat at our attempts at respect as if we were the criminals.

Foul on Crouch by Johnson. Presumably.

Let’s get one thing straight first off…

…Stoke City are infinitely better than us and boast the calibre of player that Mick McCarthy could barely recognise, let alone play.

But when a referee decides to widen the chasm in class by cheating, then football immediately stops being a game that I can ever associate with.

Anthony Taylor was the faceless friend of the school ground bully, lapping up every insult and profanity that Stoke City threw his way.

He cheated by not sending off Jonathan Woodgate for hacking down Jarvis a second time in the process of conceding a penalty (second bookable offence).

He then failed to spot a clear tackle by Roger Johnson on Jon Walters, deciding to reward fair play with a free kick to Stoke, from which they levelled.

Predictably, Stoke go on to win due to their superior ability at retaining possession and Tony Pulis can congratulate the men he had spent the last 90 minutes chastising.

That’s Premier League football folks.

This whole sub plot is inextricable to the game itself, so to quote Big Ron on a famous Monday Night Football interview: ‘If the boys play badly I’ll whip ‘em, but I ain’t whipping them for that.’

In short, we were great for 30 minutes and were by far the better team, going 1-0 up from the spot as Jarvis revelled in the absence of Andy Wilkinson.

While the referee clearly influenced the game by not sending off Woodgate, a secondary turning point was when Stephen Hunt ignored Steven Fletcher with the goal gaping before half time.

Whatever Mick said to his men at the break clearly didn’t work, as Stoke forced their way back into the game through the referee’s second clear moment of ineptitude.

But for all our gripes at the injustice of it all, we never made Sorensen save a single shot in the second half, looking completely dumbfounded at how to stem the red and white tide.

Stephen Ward, for all his vast improvement, was caught out for a second successive Saturday and with the ball firmly in our court to attack, we did nothing.

The threat of Jarvis was nullified when Pennant and Shotton doubled up on him, yet our secondary threat in Adam Hammill was once again ignored as we laboured to the final whistle.

Eleven defeats in 14 – featuring two feeble victories – tells us all we need to know about our side.

With peanuts to play with in January to strengthen it, maybe Mick would be better served calling up his good mate Pulis for a chat.

Knowing how to ‘win friends and influence people’ might earn us more points come May 13 than £4.5 million quid ever could.

When I see that little boy counting down the clock to Christmas my mind starts dreaming of something else completely.

Any of the above?

Transfer window time!

Before we know it, Steve Morgan can dust off his chequebook and give us all a belated Crimbo present or two to enjoy for months to come.

And if he gives us a pair of crappy socks in the footballing form of Mujangi, then save yourself the effort Steve. It’s the thought that counts, remember!

So with a measly 16 goals from 15 games so far this season, it is as clear as Santa’s beard that we need a striker in January and he must have pace.

We never get in behind teams and aside from Jarvo’s recent renaissance; we don’t have a genuine outlet that can turn defence into attack at the blink of an eye.

So who, within reason and a £3 million budget, is going to fill the old gold stockings come the January window?

Here’s a list of likely targets who might be cheap and possibly cheerful.

Nicky Maynard

We always seem to be linked to Maynard, probably because he ticks most of the boxes.

He can score all types of goals, from a Football League goal of the season in 2010 (bicycle kick away at QPR) to the tap in against us a few years ago.

He’s out of contract in the summer too, so there’s no way City can demand the big bucks.

Billy Sharp

I always like what I see with Billy Sharp (aside from his belting strike past us for Donny in the FA Cup). Yes, he didn’t have the best of times at Bramall Lane, but to say he is rubbish is as much of a fallacy as to say he owes his Scunthorpe success to Andy Keogh.

Sharp is still banging in the goals in a poor Donny side and although he is not jet heeled, he has a turn of pace and he has an eye for goal. Above all else, he wouldn’t command the fee he used to.

Wilfried Zaha

One swallow does not make a summer folks, unless I am watching the Carling Cup at Old Trafford.

I saw this jet heeled kid running rings round the Manchester United defence and thought: “Who the hell is this?”

I checked Wikipedia and was told he has only scored 3 in about 60 games, a stat which adds to the intrigue.

He is 19 and moreover, he looks exactly the type of player Mick loves, being as he is young, hungry and works his backside off. He was even sprinting towards the corner flag in the 119th minute after going down with cramp two minutes earlier.

The likelihood of this one happening is as skinny as his legs, being as a load of clubs are apparently looking at him.

Marvin Emnes

Another one with pace with similar attributes to Maynard. Looks a handful and we all know about him from the FA Cup in 2008/09 when he smashed two past us.

His repertoire of goals suggests he can score the type of goals that our strikers can’t – running through, in behind defenders. With a bit of pace!

However, there would appear to be something of the Akinbiye about him and he’s dried up of late. Not sure, but worth a look and would fit into our price range.

Marvin Sordell

To be brutally frank, I haven’t heard his name being banded about but whenever I watch out for Kightly’s contributions at Watford, I seem to see this guy scoring.

So I looked him up…Brendan Rogers is looking at him, after nabbing their last prolific striker off the Hornets in the summer (Graham). Nigel Adkins also likes him too, who knows a bit about centre forward from his time at Scunny.

Worth £3 million. This buys you pace apparently.

Ross McCormack

Another (relatively) cheap target, who Mick first eulogised over in the season we won the CCC.

I remember us winning at Cardiff 2-1 and Mick spent far longer salivating off over a lad called McCormack than he did our goalscorers SEB and Big Chris.

After a lean spell, he is plundering in the goals for Leeds, and my mate who is a Leeds fan said he is the business. Says they can’t do without him.

If it’s good enough to piss him off, then let’s spend, spend, spend!

Mame Diouf

Thought I’d end with a joker in the pack. Don’t ask me why I’ve thrown this name into the mix. It’s just a hunch I have. He’s not prolific, he is never going to set your pulse racing if you heard we’d signed him and for those reasons alone, he looks like a nailed on target.

In fairness though, Sir Alex saw enough in him to bring him to England, and when you look at William Prunier, Djemba Djemba, Ralph Milne and Dong Fangzhuo, who are we to argue.

Naturally there will be other names banded around between now and January, but for the price we pay and the expectations we all have, these might just be the best we can hope for.

Any thoughts?

* We’ll be doing similar blogs about midfield and defensive targets, so probably best to keep the chit-chat about strikers. Just warning people, as it could get repetitive over the course of three articles if everyone starts posting their shopping lists.