Wolves' Jake Cassidy set for chance to prove potential

Wolves are set to persevere with striker Jake Cassidy and loan him to a leading League One club next season to avoid them missing out on the next Sam Vokes.

Cassidy was loaned back to Tranmere for the second half of the campaign but only found the net once in 19 games as Rovers were relegated to League Two.

The 21-year-old is still to break his scoring duck for Wolves after 25 games, 11 of which he has started.

But head coach Kenny Jackett is a firm believer that bigger strikers take longer to blossom and cites the example of 24-year-old Vokes, who scored 22 goals for Burnley this season to help fire them to the Premier League, two years after Wolves sold him to Turf Moor for £500,000.

And Jackett doesn't want to risk a repeat by not giving the Wales Under-21 international every opportunity to fulfil his potential at Molineux.

"I think a realistic assessment of Jake is he comes back in pre-season and I have a look at him," said Jackett.

"But probably the expectation is he gets a League One loan and we try to get him maybe at a club a little bit higher than Tranmere.

"I see potential with him. You look at young centre-forwards, well look at Sam Vokes for example now.

"So we'll be open minded and he'll come back with the rest of the group."

Jackett is open-minded about which players from the Under-21s will progress to the senior squad this season.

"Some of them have been very close such as Eusebio and Kortney Hause," he said.

"Jake and Zeli Ismail will come back with us after their loans.

"Bradley Reid and Dominic Iorfa have been out on loan at Wrexham and Shrewsbury respectively.

"So it will be very interesting to see those players because quite often they can change from one season to the next.

"Most clubs have a look at those players in pre-season, which is never a bad thing because people don't want to really necessarily loan them until August anyway, financially.

"So in five or six weeks and even if you're watching him in your training and your Under-21 games, players can change and they can come back stronger.

"If there's one that does break through that's fantastic, and all of us will be open-minded to that."