QPR's former assistant manager Kenny Jackett has successfully brought Wolves back from a pit of despair. Now one of the promotion favourites, can he and his team take that further step?

There is a theory that Kenny Jackett was actually the brains behind the great QPR revival from 2001 to 2004, which saw the team start off bankrupt, with only six fit senior players, freshly relegated to the Second Division and end up back in the Championship via a plat-off final near miss and memorable promotion campaign, with a team chock full of talented players picked up cheaply, and a good few QPR fans into the bargain.

Ian Holloway, the talismanic manager of the time, who reunited the club and galvanised the support base, often says Jackett was his best signing. He came in from Watford, bringing Chris Day and Steve Palmer with him, two key components of Holloway’s team. He also recommended chief scout Mel Johnson (available for free at the moment Rangers, cough cough) who initially helped Holloway build that team up from scratch in time for the start of the season and went on to spot Danny Shittu, Lee Camp, Martin Rowlands, Lee Cook and several other cult heroes of the time.

When Jackett left to take up a number one position at Swansea, and Johnson was picked off by Spurs, it could be argued that the football deteriorated. QPR went on an extraordinary run of seven straight wins and nine wins from ten games to put them in the Championship promotion picture in their first season, but they tailed off thereafter and kept tailing off. Holloway was seen as a bit of a long-ball merchant by his harshest critics. Jackett went on to keep Millwall in the Championship and enjoyed prolonged cup runs and is now overseeing a transformation of Wolves’ fortunes. Holloway is one of three (and counting) managers to try and fail to follow in his footsteps there, although Jackett's resignation at The Den looked very much like a lookout boy who'd spotted an iceberg and decided to make first use of the lifeboats before it arrived.

But Jackett is hardly the charismatic tactical innovator, breaking new ground and wowing the footballing world with systems and footballing philosophy. Straight faced, rarely smiling, with similar eyes to the penguin in Wallace and Gromit’s Wrong Trousers, Jackett is crafting a reputation on steady, old, British football values. Wolves, like Millwall and QPR before them, are built on the premise that if you have a physical front two who can finish, and a winger on each side who can cross a decent ball, you’re going to score a lot of goals. Jackett likes his teams tight, his centre halves uncompromising, his wingers wide and his strikers big and/or quick.

He particularly likes James Henry, a wide midfield player with a devilish delivery who he signed for Millwall and has now brought to Molineux. Think Rowlands and Cook in that QPR team — stay wide, we’ll get you the ball, get it out of your feet, get a good cross over.

The situation at Wolves when he arrived was different to the blank canvas with no money for paint he found at Loftus Road when he first arrived. Wolves had crashed through the Championship after relegation from the Premier League thanks to a series of poor decisions from the board of directors. First of all they got themselves trapped in that Premier League nonsense we’ve struggled with ourselves, paying massive money to mediocre players — Roger Johnson chief among them but our own Karl Henry and Kevin Doyle as well. Then they sacked Mick McCarthy midway through a relegation campaign without a replacement in mind — the idea to resist demands from crusty old Alan Curbishley probably wasn’t a bad call, but ending up with Terry Connor in charge for the rest of the season was hardly shrewd. StÃ¥le Solbakken looked like a Brentford-style, well-researched Moneyball appointment but struggled with a squad of big egos while his replacement Dean Saunders looked like a panic grab at somebody having a half decent run at Doncaster Rovers.

Jackett first set about removing the egos and earners. Kevin Doyle and Karl Henry were both sent to train with the reserves. Luckily high earning, ageing, mediocre players who have featured in past Premier League sticker books are like a dripping roast to QPR and we soon obliged in taking both off their hands. He added Sam Ricketts as a steadying, experienced hand and then set about building his favourite thing — a team with big physical forwards and wingers who can cross. Promotion was achieved with plenty to spare and but for a dire November of six defeats last season they might have made another play-off appearance in the Championship in May.

You wonder why other clubs, higher up the chain, haven’t come calling for Jackett, given his record, which has almost always been achieved on a shoestring budget. When you look at some of the no-hopers who clubs fall over themselves to appoint time and again, why does Jackett never get linked with a club? Why, given the state QPR have worked themselves into, have Rangers never been seriously linked with offering him a go on his own at Loftus Road?

This season will be an acid test of him. Perhaps he’s simply seen as a steady, basic, Championship-level manager. Fine for stabilising your club and parking it in the middle of this division while not spending a great deal, but incapable of pushing it onto anything more than that and an occasional cup run. The Wolves fans are known for high expectations, short attention spans and booing their own team at home matches. Our Interview this week says promotion has to be the aim this season, barely 12 months after the club returned to this level. Can Jackett achieve it, or will this fairly young Wolves team wilt if their fans become impatient with them.

I fancy them strongly this season and if I’m right, there’ll be plenty out there wishing they’d had a closer look at Kenny Jackett over the past decade. He’ll be hot managerial property come the Spring if this goes well.

Links >>> Official Website >>> Express and Star local paper >>> Jackett’s rebuild can push Wolves further — interview >>> Molineux Mix Message Board >>> Wolves Forum >>> The Molineux Way Message Board >>> Vital Wolves site and forum >>> Wolves Blog

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OldPedro added 10:20 - Aug 19 Always liked Jackett as a manager. Pity that he wasn't available when Harry's knees gave up.
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GetMeRangers added 12:15 - Aug 19 I popped over to Wolves Player and enjoyed his no nonsense interview. Very level headed and calm. Presumably he must have another side for the dressing room?
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TacticalR added 14:16 - Aug 19 Thanks for your oppo profile. It is an interesting question as to why Jackett hasn't been picked up elsewhere. He seemed to run out of steam at Swansea, a team on the up, and then went to Millwall, so perhaps that gave the impression that he was a small time manager?
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