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Kenny Jackett's Sylvan Ebanks-Blake refusal shows dedication to new Wolves era

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Football played a cruel joke on Wolves last April Fool's Day. They were actually playing rather well, with a bit of fire and tempo and dominating a derby against Birmingham City at St Andrew's writes Martin Swain.

moreThey won the game 3-2 – a third successive victory – and for a moment the Molineux faithful were entitled to believe that if the nightmare wasn't exactly over, there would at least be a temporary respite, a chance to reach the summer safely, lick their wounds, gather their thoughts and start again.

But it was a fool's gold that rapidly turned black. For the principal alchemist in this one brief passage of encouraging form under Dean Saunders, Sylvan Ebanks-Blake, was taken out of the equation for the remainder of the season because of a broken bone in his left fibula.

Wolves fans who were at St Andrew's that day probably feared the worst when they saw an old Albion adversary, Paul Robinson, move in to make the fateful tackle.

There was, it should be recorded, nothing malicious in the defender's challenge but bad things usually happened to Wolves when they ran into this old nemesis.

Without Ebanks-Blake, who had scored twice in the game as he rediscovered the form that had bullied goals out of Championship defenders in the past, Wolves lost five out of the last six and sank to the accompaniment of bitter recriminations and the sack for Saunders.

The 'what ifs' for the club and a manager who had, frankly, looked hopelessly out of his depth but might have survived the cull had he kept Wolves in the Championship can never be answered.

But Ebanks-Blake paid a heavy price, too. What seems even more curious, however, is the firm rebuttal by Saunders' replacement Kenny Jackett to consider utilising the forward now that Wolves have got him fit again.

It is a revealing endorsement of the head coach's determination to draw a clear and visible line between those players still closely associated with a period in the club's recent history which became so corrupted.

Let's be clear. Ebanks-Blake is on site and a familiar figure within the group even allowing for the gentle drip, drip, drip of change Jackett is shrewdly overseeing.

He's not going to be 100 per cent sharp for a while, but in the third tier the 27-year-old is a striker who wouldn't promise promotion so much as guarantee it.

In one of his media sessions this week, Jackett gave us an insight into the mystery of Bjorn Sigurdarson's failure so far to establish himself in English football despite possessing what even the coach agrees are "formidable" physical assets. Siggy, he explained, had yet to learn how to "use his body" against the gnarled defenders of our domestic football, a quality that many don't acquire until they are in their mid-20s and fully developed with a body of games behind them.

This, of course, is a subject in which Ebanks-Blake has a Masters. Wolves fans always admired the way the striker was able to spin and turn opponents or shrug off their challenges.

This key strength even explains why Ebanks-Blake found the Premier League a step too far – he ran into athletes able to do to him what he had been doing to others on the team's rise to the top flight.

Nevertheless, you would imagine that the prospect of unleashing Ebanks-Blake over the second half of the season against League One defenders would be enormously appealing to Jackett. And maybe, as a pure footballing judgement, it truly is.

Wolves could certainly strike a temporary deal with the player, you would imagine; it would be the perfect opportunity for 'SEB' to sharpen up his game in familiar surroundings while getting paid for his trouble.

But Jackett's refusal, point-blank and uncompromising, to consider this ready-made solution to what he concedes is a shortfall in the goalscoring department is perhaps the most concrete symbol of his commitment to a new era at the club.

He has moved out others on loan, such as Stephen Ward, Karl Henry and Roger Johnson.

He was willing to consider Jamie O'Hara as a viable first-team contender, but his return to the sidelines after a damning verdict from Blackpool passes its own comment.

As we know, the head coach took the Molineux job with a brief that was multi-faceted. Of course, promotion was the core requirement but stitched to that priority was the development of a new identity for Wolves and one which would be closely aligned to the club's self-reared players.

This week he called back Liam McAlinden from his Shrewsbury loan in the hope and belief that the 20-year-old rookie can provide a more accommodating solution to his team's goalscoring problems than a player who has seen it, done it and got the T-shirt.

Ebanks-Blake comes with no reputation for stirring up trouble, but nevertheless remains guilty by association to the dispiriting events of the previous couple of seasons.

That Jackett is prepared to ignore such an obvious route to promotion in order that the cleansing of Molineux continues speaks much for his dedication to fulfil all the terms of his employment.