Express & Star

Kenny Jackett reveals turning point in Wolves revival

Kenny Jackett today declared he is well down the road in the 'cleansing of Wolves' and revealed a turning point was the exit of four strikers in January.

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The Molineux head coach has transformed Wolves since his arrival last June and believes the 're-aligning'of the squad has helped coaches and scouts identify how to strengthen the group quicker as he reflected on promotion from League One.

Some 25 players have left –14 of which are on loan – since Jackett's arrival, and four of the departed were strikers in the January window.

Since Kevin Doyle, Leigh Griffiths, Bjorn Sigurdarson and Jake Cassidy exited, Wolves have won 11 games out of 14.

Nouha Dicko has been the significant replacement up front with Leon Clarke struggling to make an impression, but Jackett believes that overhaul has seen a clearer picture emerge, with a settled but fluid formation revolving around one striker.

"If you look at the back end of January, from February 1 we let four centre forwards go, which is quite unusual with Doyle, Sigurdarson, Griffiths and Cassidy all going out," said the boss.

"It's aligned the groups a bit better and even in training on Monday, you can see the structure of it.

"There's not an overload in any one position; the basis is on younger rather than older but there are still some good experienced pros.

"Each group is chasing the next and trying to put pressure on.

"That's what you continually need to do; we need to work on our coaching, work on our scouting and all of the coaches all the way down can work off good leads, and all of the scouts can watch where the gaps are and see where we need to improve each area.

"And if we can do that, we can always stay one step ahead – we can try to have the next one (signing) in place before we need it."

Jackett added: "I felt I had a good idea of what was needed before I came in and that definitely helped me when I started," said the boss.

"Then at every stage we've just changed things slightly."

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