Kenny Jackett's World Cup licence at Wolves

Wolves boss Kenny Jackett admits the World Cup has given managers a fresh licence to dust off an 'old' tactic.

Jackett was captivated by the superb tournament in Brazil – even if he couldn't stay awake to watch all of the earlier games!

And the Molineux head coach believes Netherlands coach Louis Van Gaal's surprise tactic of switching to three at the back early on will encourage managers to once again try the wing-back system that seemed to have largely died at the turn of the millennium.

"The 11pm games got the better of me a couple of times – I had to put Jimmy Carr on instead!" said Jackett. But I saw most of the games and they were very good.

"I think they were enjoyable, which I don't think you could say for all of the tournaments.

"Sometimes you have wait for the latter stages or the big games or the England matches for that to happen, but right across the board it was very interesting.

"The number of sides playing three at the back shows how interesting it is and then some of the insights into it from the people out there – for example Roberto Martinez - were very good.

"Martinez used that system when he was at Wigan and Steve Bruce got out of the Championship by playing three at the back at Hull and had a relatively successful season last time.

"So there are people who have used it and at the right time, and it's been an interesting part of the World Cup.

"But I also think the fact we know more of the players makes it more interesting.

"Look at Chile - out of their back three, Gary Medel got relegated, I think Gonzalo Jara got released from Nottingham Forest and the other one was the left-sided centre-back (Joses Rojas) and yet they were such an effective unit.

"It just shows there are different ways of doing it.

"The Dutch have been very impressive; Louis Van Gaal didn't play three at the back in any of the friendlies or the qualifiers.

"Then in the first game against the world champions (Spain), he played three at the back and beat them handsomely.

"It was a brave move, but he read it very well and he used Wesley Sneijder, Arjen Robben and Robin Van Persie on top of that back five was very brave but also very insightful."

It reminded Jackett of when England players persuaded Bobby Robson to switch to a similar system in Italia 90 and they reached the semi-finals.

"I can remember someone asking Gary Lineker, who played in that side and I think he said the players felt it and put it to Bobby Robson, who they felt they had a good relationship with," he said.

"They tried it in training, liked it and went with it and they got through to the semi-finals.

"Lineker was very positive about it."

Jackett has also been impressed by the high energy of so many teams in the competition.

"It was great, really good and it was attacking as well," he said. There weren't many sides who closed it down too much. Looking at the USA, their running was very impressive.

"I wouldn't say they were technically any better but with their running and hunger, they did very well and they were very unlucky to go out."