These are 5 of them.

Poised to take over?

1. He’s a winner

With a career win percentage of 57%, Smith would bring a winning mentality to the dressing room, which is something we desperately need for this final push.

Yes, those figures are inflated by dominating the SPL for so long with Rangers, but even in his least successful position at Everton he won a third of his games, which is roughly what he’ll need to achieve at Molineux, albeit with a handful of draws thrown in for good measure.

2. He’s done it before

In a two year spell as manager of Scotland, Smith was immediately able to galvanise a group of average players who’d failed miserably under Berti Vogts.

They famously beat France at Hampden Park and climbed 70 places in the FIFA rankings before he left the position to rejoin Rangers.

This encourages me that he brings the motivational skills and tactical nous to alter our fortunes in a relatively short period of time.

3. He’s experienced

34 years as a manager tells me that Smith has seen and done it all before.

As does the fact he’s managed internationally as well as in the Champions League.

So is anyone better positioned to come up with solutions to the many problems facing this struggling Wolves side?

Yes, a younger candidate might well have come with greater enthusiasm, but in our dire situation an older head that won’t panic if things don’t immediately come good might well be crucial.

4. He’s respected

Success breeds success

The players will instantly trust and respect a man like Walter Smith, which is precisely what we need.

Instant focus and concentration.

Someone like Lee Clark, who is renowned for being outspoken and confrontational may not have been received quite so well.

5. He has a point to prove

The fact that many supporters seem so dead against his proposed appointment, even on such a short term deal, is probably what whetted his appetite for the challenge.

Despite his many successes in Scotland, some critics still believe he hasn’t proven himself south of the border after a mixed spell at Everton.

If he can drag Wolves to safetly, it would surely put these nagging doubts to bed once and for all?

He’ll be desperate to do that.

So if, and it is still very much an ‘if’, Walter Smith does agree to see us home this season, it’s imperative we back him to the hilt.

The time for assessing whether the two Ms made the correct appointment or a terrible mistake is Sunday May 13th, not Thursday February 23rd.

I think we can all agree on that.

That seems to be the mantra the two Ms are adopting in their quest to fill the manager’s parking space at Compton.

"You'll be back...they always come back!"

Yep, Brucie is the safe pair of hands Jez and Steve will turn to if all else fails.

There can be no other explanation.

If they wanted him, the deal would have been concluded by now.

Considering this, his arrival would be the most underwhelming announcement since the Early Bird propaganda once again dribbled onto the club’s website.

What kind of message does that send out?

“Sorry guys, but nobody we actually wanted was interested.”

If you believe what you read in the papers, Alan Curbishley was the preferred candidate but he turned it down.

Something to do with ‘vision’.

Poyet was mentioned and then forgotten about no sooner than his £2 million price-tag was made public.

Brian McDermott seemed a strong shout yesterday, particularly with Reading keeping schtum, but it now appears a better deal from the Mad Stad was enough to entice him into staying.

A sense of desperation is beginning to resonate from the Molineux hierarchy; a fact underlined by reports that M & M went back to Alan Curbishley for a second time last night, only to have the door slammed in their faces like bothersome Jehovah’s witnesses.

So what now?

Time is running out, the heat is well and truly on and despite vague assurances from our beloved CEO last weekend, it doesn’t appear that the much-heralded process has heralded any notable results.

If what we’re being fed in the papers is true, it would appear there are 3 distinct options:

1. Make concessions to entice Alan Curbishley.

2. Gamble on a left-field candidate in the Clark, Ince, Keane mould.

3. Hire Steve Bruce.

What’s your money on?

If I was a gambling man, I’d be going all-in on the fall back guy.

…A talented number two.

Choosing the best boss for the job is a huge task alone, but allowing him to have the best ‘right hand man’ for the job comes a close second in significance.

'It would be lovely' to get a decent assistant, wouldn't it?

For this reason alone, Steve Bruce should be avoided at all costs, as Eric Black – his voice of sanity – is assistant manager at Blackburn.

Dave Jones should know this better than anyone, which is why he should never get another sniff of the job either.

Having found a good thing in John Ward when we got promoted in 2003, Ward mysteriously vanished, as Jones ploughed a lone furrow from each Premier League dugout, with our performances suffering accordingly.

Glenn Hoddle – for all his obvious shortcomings – looked similarly bereft on the bench, so much so that he turned to his late brother Carl to help with training!

Then everything felt so much fresher under Mick, due mainly to his infectious work ethic, but partly due to Taff Evans, surely?

Watching the pair of them off the pitch was a breath of fresh air to match the lads’ achievements on it.

Due to a ‘hip operation’, Taff was never to be seen in the dugout again, as Mick lost a perceptive pair of eyes that he surely could have done with when the going got so tough.

And what about dear old Graham Turner?

When we steamrollered through divisions four and three, the presence of Barry Powell alongside him was a sight that always appeared to reassure and inspire in equal measure.

For reasons I never knew, the exclusively irate Gary Pendry replaced him, a moustachioed Ron Jeremy to Powell’s Ned Flanders.

In the most pointless, least tactical exercise I ever had the fun of laughing at, Gary would drop kick balls at Bully’s shins from 3 yards to ‘improve his first touch’ prior to every single kick-off.

The only difference between Pendrey and the porn star being 10 times the anger and animation from the dug out.

If Turner had kept with the milder mannered Powell, he would have been an even bigger legend – in my unsubstantiated opinion!

Just one look at Harry Redknapp underlines my point, as the future England boss surrounds himself with good men in Joe Jordan, Kevin Bond and Clive Allen. No coincidence?

So while Jez Moxey hastily declares that this job is ‘not for the novice,’ maybe he’s learned that experience can be found in a number of ways. Hence the dithering.

I apologise if my headline was somewhat (deliberately) misleading, but I’ve experienced this groundbreaking epiphany and I want to share it with you.

Well, either that or the excruciating anticipation has eroded my brain to the dimensions of a shriveled raisin.

Allow me to continue…

It does not matter who is announced as the next manager of our great club.

Curbs - ruled out at phase 2 for failing his cycling proficiency test (unconfirmed)

Whether it’s Steve Bruce, Steve Coppell or Stone Cold Steve Austin, it does not make the slightest bit of difference.

Why?

Because you and I and Steve and Jez have precisely zero idea who will and who won’t achieve success.

How can we?

You and I can only form opinions based on track records and that most scientific of queries: do I like him?

Not exactly the Large Hadron Collider of processes is it?

Steve and Jez of course have another weapon in their artillery – the ‘interview’.

Woah, stand back.

Yes, they actually get to luxuriate in a London hotel room together (oo-er) and talk turkey with the candidates.

But this is in reality a complete and utter waste of time.

They don’t know what they’re looking for any better than you or I.

Yes, they can take in Alan Curbishley’s Powerpoint presentation and watch in awe as Steve Bruce lays out a tactical master-plan on his Subbuteo pitch, but how can they, as two business men who have never kicked a ball in their lives, possibly know what will and won’t work?

I can understand the importance of a quick meet-and-greet to cement a working relationship and go over some of the finer details, but what can possibly be achieved with this drawn out process and second interview nonsense?

Are they making them sit some sort of numeracy test to ensure they’re capable of sticking eleven names on the teamsheet? Or maybe they’re bringing the big guns down and making it a 3-way panel with Rachael Heyhoe Flint?

It’s a complete farce.

And you have to ask yourself would they still be going down this avenue if there was actually one outstanding candidate?

I don’t believe for a minute they’d have wasted time breaking bread with Neil Warnock if Martin O’Neill was still available. Do you?

No, this whole thing stinks of the fact that nobody on the shortlist is really any more qualified than the next man to get us out of this mess.

Hence the dawdling.

So please, for the sake of everyone’s sanity, just pick someone.

Because it doesn’t even matter.

According to the Daily Mail, Steve Bruce won’t touch us with a bargepole after Jez and Steve unveiled a new-fangled concept to replace the outmoded old one: ‘The short-term strategy.’

If Paddy McGuiness wasn’t hosting his Saturday night game show, he could have been transported to our London hotel instead.

Cue footage of our mess of a stadium, Steve Morgan’s seething face at home to Liverpool and the rest was history.

‘No likey, no lighty,’ screams Bruce in terror as he joins Alan Curbishley in smashing his switch quicker than a contestant faced with Jo Brand.

Bad enough approaching the mingers that none of us would touch, worse still to offer them the island of Fernando on a 13 game holiday and get it thrown back in our faces!

Whether or not these custard pie rumours are to be believed or not, the fact that the bookies have Mick McCarthy at 25-1 to come back to Molineux tells its own story.

Were it not for the endless smug platitudes from Moxey up until now, some fans might view this appointment process with a modicum of patience.

But when Jez Moxey turned up on Sky Sports News last night to say absolutely nothing of any note whatsoever, such equanimity is harder to find.

Thirteen games to save our season, and a scenario of having no manager in place against Newcastle United, let alone a preferred one.

Some situation for a club that always saw the bigger picture.

After picking up seven points from our first three league games, Jez Moxey said the following:

“Nothing is by chance. You get what you put in in life generally.

“Sometimes you don’t get what you deserve, or what you put in. But when you get an opportunity, and this is a horrible phrase: ‘when preparation meets opportunity’ – or whichever way it is! – you get this offspring called good fortune, or good luck.

“And we believe about making your own good fortune or luck in life. But to do that you’ve just got to work your socks off 24/7.”

That Wolves appear to be having no luck in this most miserable of manager hunts tells its own story.

Thirteen games. Everything by chance. And barely a manager left in the studio with his light on.

Neil Warnock being shortlisted for the British Sports Book Award in 2008, or Neil Warnock being shortlisted for the Wolves job in 2012.

Despite seven promotions on seven shoestrings, not a lot of fans appear to like the man whose boots Mick used to clean.

But if any bloke would use a dissenting blog or two as motivation, Warnock would appear to be he.

Warnock kicking down a London hotel door

Factor in no loss of love for one of his main challengers for the Molineux hotseat and Moxey and Morgan might have stumbled upon a spicy interview process.

It was Alan Curbishley who relegated Warnock’s Sheffield United on the last day of the 2007 season when West Ham beat Man United through Carlos Tevez, ‘football’s equivalent of a murderer on bail.’

Warnock never forgot. Neither did he forget Curbishley’s agent Phil Smith calling him before that final weekend, warning about a ‘flat cap collusion’ with Wigan, whom the Blades would  eventually lose to.

He said: “It made me laugh. I was still thinking about Fergie presenting Curbishley with those first class tickets to New Zealand the year before (as a present for his last game as Charlton boss).

“Curbishley must hope he gets United on the last game of every season. In 2005/06 it was plane tickets, the next season it’s six players missing from Ferguson’s first team,” added Warnock.

Whether the ‘Two Ms’ realised this when they hastily drew up their shortlist is doubtful, but one thing is for sure…

…Warnock will be obsessing over finally getting his own back.

Whatever the interview process entails, such history might just make Warnock an unlikely winner from this whole process – once the DNA tests come back from the lab of course.

Steve Bruce will certainly have a say, and will be doing so right now. But his Mick-like ability to marginalise better players that he actually bought (for Hammill and Guedioura read McClean and Gardner), and an unwanted reference in the form Sunderland’s current Premier League position, the job might just be down to two.

And with all three men trying desperately to shake off stigmas in a London hotel this weekend, it might just come down to who wants the job more. In which case, there’d only be one winner.

That most of us don’t want Neil Warnock wouldn’t bother Jez Moxey either. It certainly wouldn’t bother the Yorkshireman, who’d go at it like a ‘red rag to a bull.’

If he says anything like the following in his pitch – having gone through his career achievements as a manager – then Moxey and Morgan’s faces are bound to be a picture.

“I realised that what I do best is to make poor players play averagely and average players play well. I make people believe.

“My challenge is this: With very little money, I want to finish above teams who have got everything – everything, that is, except the one ingredient they need, which I can provide. You can’t patent that ingredient.”

If Morgan and Moxey choose not to judge a book by its cover, then this managerial race might not be as nailed on as many might think.

Not everyone's cup of tea

And whilst the overwhelming majority seemed to agree the time was right for him to depart, the outpouring of good-feeling towards our now former leader has been remarkable.

I make no secret that I was and remain a staunch MM supporter. It pained me to call for his head in Sunday’s match report;  something I’d never publicly done even after the debacle of the Swansea game earlier in the season.

But now he has left the scene, I will forever defend what I consider to be foolish statements thrown around questioning the significant strides forward the club made under his stewardship.

These are 5 comments I’ve spotted over the years on this very blog that I stringently disagree with.

1. “Getting us promoted was no great achievement because he had money to spend.”

Putting aside the fact that he assembled the nucleus of that Championship winning side for peanuts, I still think this statement is grossly unfair.

Yes, he was given money to invest after Steve Morgan took control, but he still had to spend it wisely.

Admittedly he needed the dosh to get the likes of SEB, Iwelumo, Jones and Stearman who were obviously crucial to our success.

But although money helps, it doesn’t guarantee anything.

Just look at Leicester this season.

They spent more on Jermaine Beckford and Matt Mills than our entire Championship winning squad combined and they’re currently marooned in midtable.

Winning that league was a fantastic achievement and I don’t think many other managers would have done it in the timescale Mick did, particularly when you consider what he inherited.

2. “He only kept us up in our first season because Portsmouth, Hull and Burnley were so terrible.”

Pompey's loss our gain?

This statement annoys me because it completely disregards the fact that we finished in 15th place, above West Ham and Wigan, as well as the three aforementioned relegated sides.

Plus you can only beat what’s put in front of you and thanks to MM going 451 and playing Doyle up front as the lone striker, we did that and with games to spare.

Some dodgy transfer dealings in this season I’ll grant you, but we know for a fact our reluctance to pay decent wages scuppered moves for better targets.

3. “He only kept us up in our second season because Spurs beat Blues on the final day.”

Fast-forward 12 months and another ridiculous statement is doing the rounds.

For some reason, people have suddenly decided to completely disregard the previous 37 games of the season as if they count for nothing to justify a dig at the manager.

Yes, if Blues had beaten Spurs, they would have stayed up – you’re correct.

But why stop there?

If they’d reigned victorious in the other 14 games they lost that season, they’d have won the league, so by that logic Manchester United’s title-win is tainted.

Do me a favour.

We stayed up because over a 38 game season we accumulated more points that three other sides. No other reason.

4. “He always played long ball and wasn’t capable of anything better.”

Slick football in the 3-1 win at West Ham

Often but not always.

What disappointed me most about the deterioration this season is that we started off with the intention of being braver and getting the ball down on the deck.

The football we played in our first two home matches against Fulham and Spurs (despite the defeat) were encouraging and showed that the players can do it.

Sadly, one or two injuries, a couple of bad results and the team retreated into it’s shell. That was very disappointing.

Throughout McCarthy’s tenure I believe we always had players capable of a braver, more progressive approach, but too often he preferred to play it safe.

I will always maintain he was capable of getting them playing better football, but simply chose not to.

5. “He can’t manage in the Premier League.”

I don’t see how anybody can utter the above statement with a straight face.

Keeping us up, whilst always hamstrung by the club’s refusal to compete for players on big salaries, proved to me that he has what it takes to to cut it at this level.

He had many shortcomings, which I openly acknowledge.

He was found wanting tactically on many occasions and I believe stubbornness and loyalty to long-serving players were big problems.

But you don’t hang around in the Premier League for two and a half years if you haven’t got something about you.

And whatever you might want to say about Mick McCarthy, he most definitely had something.

But equally, you’ll be harbouring that one name that sends a quivering chill of fear down your spine.

The man you categorically do not want as the next manager of Wolverhampton Wanderers.

And that to me is much funner game to play.

Don't wake him up until we've hired someone

So lets imagine your phone rings and it’s Jez Moxey (you’d take the call, don’t be silly).

He says he won’t let you pick the man for the job, but he will allow you to immediately rule out one candidate – no questions asked.

Who would it be?

My answer, without hesitation, Steve Bruce.

No thanks.

My reasoning is thus:

1. He wasn’t able to motivate a Sunderland team that, since his departure, has proven to be more capable than anyone thought possible under his leadership.

2. Too similar to Mick McCarthy and nowhere near as likable. Can another uncultured center-half really make a significant change, particularly with no time to bring in new players?

3. He could actually get the job despite the validity of points 1 and 2, so I wouldn’t be wasting my power ruling out the likes of John Gregory and Iain Dowie.

So there you have it – Steve Bruce.

If he does get the job, sensationally turn things round and prove me wrong, this post will live on forever as the proverbial egg on my face.

Incidentally, my preferred choice out of the realistic and available candidates would be Alan Curbishley.

Boring I know, but as he was quick to point out himself on Sky Sports News yesterday – his record stands up.

He never put a foot wrong at Charlton and has also proven he can get teams out of the Premiership mire with the salvage mission he successfully undertook at West Ham (with the help of an illegally registered Carlos Tevez of course).

And if you’re interested in idle gossip, I have it first hand as I write this, that he’s on a train from London to Wolverhampton.

Make my dreams come true Jez.

Training on St Edmund’s School’s pitches, the gaffer took one look at a similar shambles on the Compton field next door and chortled: “I’d ask them for a game lads, but they’ve only got nine men!”

Nine players, one proud Yorkshireman and the task of fashioning a silk purse from a complete pig’s ear.

In delivering the ‘impossible dream’, Mick McCarthy did something even more remarkable – he created a romance between team and fans that a Sherpa Van couldn’t even deliver.

As Valentine’s Day approaches, the love affair is over, in the saddest ending of all.

Where Shakespeare does tragedy, comedy and romance, Mick McCarthy did all three, quite often at the same time.

A no-nonsense Romeo back in 2008/9, Mick leaves the stage like King Lear, all alone, exposed and nowhere left to go.

In remembering the good times, I recall that 5-1 thrashing of Nottingham Forest at home, by a team I’ll never forget.

That his last game ended in the same scoreline is too poetic for words.

Even his most halcyon days were often played out in wonder, as Nigel Quashie came in, Mark Davies went out and Chris Iwelumo was dropped altogether.

As is ever the case with Mick McCarthy, he always did things his way.

And just like the great Frank Sinatra himself, maybe we should just remember the good times and not these miserable latter ones.

Frank occasionally forgot the words, stopped hitting the hardest notes and eventually fell over on a Virginia stage.

So while today’s announcement is music to many fans’ ears, it certainly isn’t to mine, however much I agree with it.

Emulating Mick McCarthy in 2012 isn’t the hard part anymore.

Emulating him back in the day would have been nigh-impossible, but not even Ol’ Blue Eyes could hold that note forever.