Kenny Jackett believes Wolves can be a top 10 Premier League force
Kenny Jackett has spoken of his delight at Wolves winning promotion – and thinks his old team could finish in the top 10 of the Premier League.
Jackett laid the foundations for Wolves' current success, guiding them to promotion from League One and then re-establishing the club back in the Championship.
He left when Fosun bought the club in 2016 and is now boss at Portsmouth, who have just missed out of a spot in this season's League One play offs.
Jackett believes Wolves have the potential to be a Premier League force.
"I am delighted for Wolves, several messages were sent and returned, congratulations to them," he told the Portsmouth News.
"It’s a massive club and the way the owners have come in and backed it means it looks like it could keep going as well.
"It has potential to be in the top 10 of the Premier League if they get it right, which they’ll be working really hard to achieve next season, I’m sure.
"They’ll take some stopping."
Jackett arrived at Molineux with the club in turmoil following successive relegations.
However he quickly got Wolves on the up again, discarding several high earners and moulding a team of young players – many from the club's academy – and leading them to the title with a club and league record of 103 points.
Wolves then narrowly missed out on the play-offs a season later before finishing in mid table in 2016.
Jackett's legacy is there for all to see and he said of his time at Molineux: "When I arrived they’d had two relegations in two years and quite a big discord between the supporters and the club, I thought.
"Each managerial scenario is slightly different, you have to adapt and then make sure you can capitalise on the strengths it has.
"Wolves had a high number of good, young players ready to play and it actually helped them going down to League One. It meant they played when perhaps they wouldn’t have been able to – it helped the club build.
"I tried to build some bridges between the club, the team and supporters, to regroup and go again. We didn’t want to stay down that first year like a number of other clubs have in the past, such as Leeds and Sheffield United.’
"For the opening 40 per cent of the season we were pretty much third most of the time, which isn’t a bad position.
"We were hanging on to the top clubs, sorting ourselves out. We weren’t bad, but not necessarily flying.
"At a club like that you only needed a couple of losses or defeats against a perceived small club and it can be really debilitating to everybody. In the end, because the players read social media, it started to bring the performances down.
"The first part was hard, we were hanging in, then it clicked from January.
"The ability to change a club depends on contractual situations, the backing of the owners and then what players you have underneath to be able to hit the ground running and play straight away.
"If you have that to build on then you have something to be able to take things forward – and fortunately they did at Wolves.
"Leigh Griffiths was on loan at Hibs, Richard Stearman had been loaned to Ipswich for the second half of the previous year. I brought them back, I knew they were good enough.
"There were a couple of key signings, such as Kevin McDonald from Sheffield United, who had a clause in his contract, but there was a lot to pull together.
"There were a number there who, quite rightly, didn’t want to play in League One. Wayne Hennessey was coming back from injury, but didn’t play for me as he went to Palace.
"Stephen Ward, who is now at Burnley, was another and loaned to Brighton. There were quite a few very good players that didn’t want to be there for whatever reason, but there were some takers for those guys, which was a good thing."
