BRIAN LAWS has warned that Sheffield Wednesday desperately need new investment to secure a return to the big time.

On his third anniversary as manager, Laws also lifted the lid on the broken promises that soured the start of his Hillsborough reign.

In an exclusive interview with the Yorkshire Post, Laws openly admitted that he never expected to survive this long in the Wednesday hotseat.

Yet now, after stabilising the Owls with the help of new chairman Lee Strafford, he aims to repay the loyalty of the club's supporters by securing promotion to the Premier League.

When Laws quit Scunthorpe United to join the Owls in November 2006, he was the latest in a lengthy line of managers to accept the poisoned chalice of restoring the club's former glories.

Paul Sturrock, Chris Turner, Terry Yorath, Peter Shreeves, Paul Jewell, Danny Wilson, Ron Atkinson, David Pleat and Trevor Francis had all been sacked in the previous 11 years and the Owls were drowning in debts of over £26m.

Jump forward three years and the debt is still there – although Strafford, chief executive Nick Parker and the New York-based merchant bank Inner Circle Sports are working hard to secure investment from America.

Hampered by a global recession, the task is taking longer than envisaged, but that has not prevented the Owls making significant strides forward off the field in terms of the relationship with its fanbase and the club's role in the wider community.

Results on the pitch, however, are always the barometer of a manager's success.

Laws describes the Wednesday job as the 'toughest' of his career but is just as enthusiastic about the challenge now as he was on his first day in office.

With 15 games of the season gone, the Owls are closer to the relegation zone than the top six.

However, they are above arch-rivals United in the table and Laws appears to be under no undue pressure from the club's supporters – unlike his opposite number across the city Kevin Blackwell.

"I knew the difficulties involved when I took on this job and I knew that 10 other managers could not all have been wrong," he said. "There was a problem running far deeper than that. #

"I was promised all sorts of things when I first took over but they never transpired and I also lost players that we should not have lost.

"I had to learn a new managerial skill and that was the art of pushing water up a hill with my bare hands!"

Things improved for Laws and the Owls after the departure of former chief executive Kaven Walker – who had stayed on after the resignation of chairman Dave Allen who maintained a 10 per cent stake in the club.

Laws had already expressed concerns over the club's scouting system feeling that the budget was ''embarrassing" if he was to compete for players both at home and abroad.

When money was made available on the very eve of the 2007-08 season, Laws quickly invested in strikers Francis Jeffers and Akpo Sodje. Neither has been able to deliver the goods, mainly due to injury problems, but Laws is adamant that his record in the transfer market stands up to scrutiny.

"Nobody is going to get 100 per cent of their decisions right. Even the greatest managers in the world get it wrong from time-to-time," he said. "You make decisions which you believe are right for the team.

"Sometimes players just don't fit into your system. They could score umpteen goals away from Sheffield Wednesday but when you bring them in they cannot hit a barn door.

"There have been some plusses in our signings and some negatives that anyone can see," he admitted. "They are not all going to come off but when you look at the money that has been made available to me it has been a fraction of anybody else. You end up gambling, especially when a season is about to start, and you have to take bigger risks. Over the last two years, I have hardly spent anything."

The absence of signings from the lower leagues and (with the exception of Dutch winger Etienne Esajas) players directly from abroad has been another feature of Laws's transfer strategy.

"There has been a weakness in our scouting system," he said. "When I came in, it was weak and I had to bring in people that I had been using at Scunthorpe. That was cut back further to such a degree that it was embarrassing. ]

"My budget for scouting was laughable and it minimised our chances of scouring Europe," he said.

"But that was something I strongly suggested to Lee (Strafford) that we had to change.

"It has improved massively but we have not had any finances to test it yet."

Fully supportive of his chairman, Laws understands the need for patience in the search for new investment. However, he is also acutely aware that promotion may take longer to achieve without it.

"Since I have been here, we have taken steps forward. I believe the club has now stabilised and is in desperate need of new finance to kick it on. I would like to be here a lot longer to be part of that.

"It will progress without new investment," he added. "But the progress will be slow and not as quick as people want."