Cook's dream finish

But his affection for the club that he spent six years with will be on hold tomorrow afternoon when the two clubs meet in a top of the table clash at Molineux.

"Wolves is a big club with a lovely stadium and a loyal following," he said. "They are a bit like Burnley in that way.

"But it has always been proved that being a big club does not guarantee anything and both of them have fought their way back to the top of the first division from the lower leagues.

"They are both pushing for the Premier League and it would be my dream to have Burnley win the title and Wolves be second.

"But I can't worry about any other club, all I want to do is my best for Burnley.

"There is no doubt there are more resources at Wolves because you can look at them and they have £1million players like Cedric Roussel and Bob Taylor who are not even in the team."

Cook had feared he might have a divided family tomorrow afternoon as he still lives in the Midlands and his two young sons are both regulars at the ground.

But as they left the training ground having watched their dad in action the youngsters got it right as they said: "We want Burnley to win."

If that is the case, Cook is more than happy to see a repeat of the 1-0 scoreline that toppled the previous leaders of the first division, Crystal Palace.

That was Burnley's first clean sheet since the visit of Rotherham at the start of last month and Cook admitted: "We were much happier with a 1-0 than we would have been if it was 4-2 or 5-3.

"It is a team game and it is down to everyone if you can get a clean sheet."

And Cook cleared up the mystery surrounding his winning goal on Tuesday night that Palace boss Steve Bruce had labelled "a fluke".

"To be honest it was about the only place I could put it," he said, although he did admit that if the ball had gone in off his right foot he would have understood people questioning his intentions.

The victory ended a poor run for the Clarets but Cook stressed that it was not something the players had worried about. "You can make runs and statistics say anything," he said. "We just preferred to look at the table that still said we were there near the top in third or fourth place. The fact is we did not push forward when we were top of the league.

"But it is a very tight division at the moment and I think it will stay like that. If we can stay in the top three all the way through, we will be delighted.

"Wolves had looked as if they might get away but then they had two home defeats when everyone said they were invincible."

Cook and co are hoping to make it three home defeats on the trot and like the rest of the squad he is happy to see Glen Little back in contention.

""It's terrible to have him back, he's too loud," he joked. "No seriously, everyone knows that Glen is an outstanding talent so it is great to have him back close to full fitness."

The Wolves fans, like those at Turf Moor, always have a warm welcome for ex-players and Cook knows he is set to get a good reception when he takes to the field.

But if all goes to plan that will be the last applause he will hear as Burnley take the three points to leap-frog his old club to underline a return to form.

Meanwhile Wolves have got a number of fitness doubts ahead of the game. Paul Butler, Michael Oakes, Kevin Muscat, Mark Kennedy and Nathan Blake all suffered knocks in the draw at West Brom on Thursday night and will need fitness tests.