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U23 boss Mark Kennedy says Wolves' forgotten man Jordan Graham is still in his plans

Interim U23 boss Mark Kennedy says Wolves' forgotten man Jordan Graham is still in his plans despite his Paris Saint Germain omission.

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Graham officially returned to Wolves this month after his loan at Bulgarian side Lokomotiv Plovdiv ended due to an issue with FIFA clearance.

He has not returned to the first-team squad but the 24-year-old has featured for Kennedy's U23 side since his return to England.

But after he did not feature on the team sheet for Wednesday's 1-1 Premier League International Cup draw with PSG at Molineux Kennedy explained his absence.

Kennedy said: "I’m Jordan’s biggest fan. If you speak to Scott Sellars (head of academy), Kevin Thelwell (sporting director) and all the academy guys we’re all big, big fans.

"Jordan’s 24. Jordan is an extremely talented player and I was his coach for two months in the loans group.

"I cannot speak highly enough about Jordan. But tonight’s game was really around showcasing and giving our immediate U23 squad the experience of that.

"I spoke to Jordan about that and explained it to him and I have to give him a lot of credit because he was fully supportive of that.

"But he’ll be in our squad for the Chelsea game on Saturday and I hope he’ll play a major part in that.

"That’s the only reason why Jordan wasn’t involved tonight. We felt it was really about the younger generation but I have to give Jordan a lot of credit because he was very receptive to that."

And Kennedy was delighted with the lessons his youngsters learned against Paris Saint Germain.

PSG’s Alexandre Fressange opened the scoring in the 27th second but Dan Csoka levelled in the 57th minute.

And Kennedy was delighted with the way his side responded in their first ever competitive European fixture.

He said: “All the training you do, all the phases of play, you can do all of that but I cannot replicate 6,000 fans at Molineux on a beautiful night.

“It is impossible to do, it was brilliant for me as a coach and for them because you watch some games, if a goal goes in like that it ends up being a cricket score. The fact they responded so well in the manner they played, I’m really pleased for them.

“From a learning perspective, I’m not glad it happened (conceding in the 27th second) but from a development coaching perspective, I’m really pleased because our lads were nervous.

“I could tell before the game, I could tell in the warm-up, we did various things to calm them down.”

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