Kenny Jackett has thanked the Wolves supporters who have provided a sellout away following for tomorrow’s final away match of the season at Nottingham Forest (3pm).
The match at the City will see 2,000 Wolves fans making the trip to the East Midlands, something that both Jackett and the players are appreciative of.
The Head Coach said: “The link between the team and the supporters is a real key, and we’ve had good support this year.
“They’ve come out in their numbers and travelled away in their numbers, highlighted this weekend in Nottingham.
“Home and away they’ve given us good support, and they come ready to back a good performance, and that’s all that you can ask.
“It’s up to us then and myself then as a Head Coach to put the type of performance on that encourages, that gets them behind the team.
“And this Saturday at Nottingham that will be exactly the case, and the 2,000 people there will go looking for a good strong Wolves performance.”
“It shows you the level of commitment, it’s much appreciated by myself and the players, and it’ll be good to finish off with a good performance and a victory if possible.”
Jackett also praised his players who have continued to show high levels of determination and commitment in both training and performances, in what has been a largely disappointing season.
He said: “I feel the attitude of the players has been good, they train hard, and if you’re looking at some of the bigger sides that we’ve played recently in Burnley and Hull we’ve had two competitive performances.
“But we need to and want to go one better and try to be a side that wins consistently.
“I think there are two things with the players, one is their own personal situation and then two is the overall situation with the team and where it is.
“And I’m sure that team-wise there is some frustration as we came very close last year and we haven’t this year.
“We’ve been a mid-table side and after that then you’re assessing as a player your own individual performance and obviously that will be mixed and some people have done very well, some middle ground and some have fallen away.”
Last Saturday’s draw with Rotherham United extended Wolves’ unbeaten home run to six matches, and while Jackett was encouraged by his team’s ability to create chances, he shared and understood the supporters’ frustration after what was the fourth successive goalless draw at Molineux.
He said: “Of course and you always have to accept that, four 0-0 draws at home – ok it’s better than four defeats - but we want to be playing well, we want to be creating chances and scoring goals.
“And the Rotherham game was frustrating because there was a number of clear cut chances and we just didn’t put them away.
“We played some good football and created some chances but what the game is always about is putting those chances away and turning those draws into wins.”
Wolves’ recent away record and performances have been good recently but Jackett refuted suggestions that he approaches away matches differently.
He said: “I don’t think there is necessarily a great difference in approach or the mentality from the playing squad, but we’ve been competitive in the games that have been close, but that’s not quite been enough to get us consistent wins.
“The games we’ve lost, have been lost by the odd goal and we’ve had a lot of draws obviously as well and that shows that we’re close but not close enough as we want to be winning consistently.”
The trip to the City Ground sees Wolves come up against a Nottingham Forest team who are on a three-match unbeaten run, culminating with last weekend’s 3-1 victory away at Fulham.
“Nottingham Forest are in quite good form at present, and it’s their last home game and they’ll want to finish very strongly,” said Jackett.
“They’re similar to ourselves with aspirations of being one of those three promoted teams and have been middle ground so far this season.
“It’s a very competitive division and the tradition of both clubs and the size of both clubs would aspire them to getting towards the top end of the league, and while it looks like neither club has been particularly worried about the relegation places, mid-table is not where they want to be and they’ll be fighting to try and rectify that and climb the league in future seasons.
“They’ll want to finish off strong and we’ll have to be ready and make sure that we match that but for ourselves we want to go up there and put on a good performance.”
In terms of team-news, Adam Le Fondre looks set to miss the match with the injury that kept him out of the Rotherham game, though Jackett is hopeful of the striker returning to training next week.
Wolves have no other injury concerns, meaning that youngsters Sylvain Deslandes and Bright Enobakhare are in contention to feature once again.
*Wolves have sold out of their ticket allocation for tomorrow’s game and fans without a ticket are urged not to travel to the City Ground.
