DEAN Holdsworth has vowed to turn his eye immediately towards recruitment once his takeover bid has been ratified by the Football League.

The new chairman-elect could be officially appointed by the end of the week and once that happens, an application will be made to have the club’s total transfer embargo lifted.

Holdsworth envisions no problems on that front – and wants to work with manager Neil Lennon to bring in players to aid the survival fight as quickly as possible.

“The most important thing is lifting the embargo by getting the Football League approval then recruiting people with the right acumen,” he said. “That will be working with the manager and the people involved with the football team.”

The former striker – whose bid to buy the club from Eddie Davies was finally completed this morning just 30 minutes before the High Court hearing – believes survival is still possible in the Championship despite the Whites being six points from safety with 14 games remaining.

“It’s so important that we don’t look at the end of the season and feel we could have done more,” he said. “We can’t leave it with any regrets.”

He added: “We go into this with a plan A and a plan B and give it everything we can.

“But today wasn’t about plans it was about staying out of administration, making sure those people have got jobs to go to – the heartbeat of the club – and I have got a lot of former players on my list to come and make that match-day experience even better.”

Wanderers narrowly avoided an instant 12-point deduction that would have made relegation almost certain after Sports Shield’s successful bid was submitted to the High Court.

An adjournment has now been called until March 7, before which the £3million tax and VAT bill should be settled with some of the £7.5m put up front by the consortium.

“It was unbelievably tight,” Holdsworth said. “It was scramble time.

“It was don’t panic Mr Mainwaring time.

“I’ve been through so many emotions. We dug in, we did it right, we didn’t make any false promises to anyone, we showed our cards openly to the right people and not made any false statements. I’m very proud of that.

“We’ve probably been doing this for six months now and the plans Eddie has seen from us, the finances we have had to prove and put in place with legals are there.

“Eddie cares about the club but a lot of people have said detrimental things. He has put a hell of a lot of finance into that club.

“No-one wanted the club to get relegated but the contracts that were in place didn’t have clauses – maybe that’s one of the things they’d like to go back on.

“But it’s not about looking backwards now. I think we’ve got to plan for the future, plan A, plan B, and we’ve got to try and enjoy it.

“We have another challenge now to keep the club in the Championship.”

Holdsworth also defended the structure of Sports Shield, an investment group incorporated in 2011 that has provided the basis of his bid.

“I have business partners who are very private,” he said. “The company is very private.

“I deal with high net worth individuals who don’t want to be in the public eye.

“They are genuine people but they don’t seek limelight and we keep it like that. We sign NDA (Non Disclosure Agreements) with every client.

“We know our clients very well and we do a hell of a lot of business like that. Some people want to be in the limelight, some don’t.

“Nothing would have got past Eddie (Davies) and his lawyers if there wasn’t excellent approval. That’s all I’ll say.”