Comment: Ronan and co light up the close season

Pre-season can often feel like a bit of a drag, a time when the games are meaningless, the tempo is slow and the faces are familiar.

Being at Clairefontaine with Wolves felt a bit different though - change was in the air...writes Wolves reporter Tim Spiers

A change in formation for a start as Kenny Jackett put a new 4-3-1-2 system to the test.

But, as many Wolves fans bash furiously on their keyboards until their fingertips are sore calling for new signings, there was also a noticeable change in personnel in the squad.

As well as Jackett's three new signings Jed Wallace, Conor Coady and Sylvain Deslandes, there was a fresh faced group of untried youngsters looking to make a mark - and boy did they do that.

So much so that by the end of the week Jackett was reassessing whether this band of youngsters had enough about them to rattle a few cages in the Championship next season.

Chief among the starlets to shine was Connor Ronan.

When training in France began on Monday, Ronan was at one point sat on the sidelines while the rest of the squad continued in the searing heat.

To the untrained eye this pale, slight and short youngster struggling to compose himself as he caught his breath could have passed for a work experience kid, or one of the young lads from the famed Clairefontaine academy given a chance to see what a first-team training session looks like.

Then Ronan took to the field for a full-sided game. Seconds later he took on a couple of first-team pros in the blink of eye, the ball glued to his feet.

'A bit special isn't he?' one of the backroom staff remarked.

Pace, skill, trickery, an eye for a pass and, despite his frame, deceptively strong – Ronan could have a big future.

He took it to another level against Paris FC on Friday, pirouetting past two players and then taking on a third for good measure in a sequence which had the Wolves fans on their feet.

The 17-year-old wasn't the only one to impress.

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Lightning quick Donovan Wilson scored a beauty in the same game during the second of two promising cameos from the bench.

Fellow striker Bright Enobakhare was said to sometimes be the best striker in training by Nouha Dicko, Declan Weeks looked composed and comfortable on the ball, Aaron Hayden and Deslandes displayed poise and self-assurance in defence.

And while goalkeeper Jon Flatt was culpable for Chambly's opener during Wolves' 3-2 victory, he otherwise made some top-drawer saves and stepped up to being the most senior available keeper at the club, while 18-year-old Harry Burgoyne was faultless in his 45 minutes against Paris.

All in all a hugely successful week, which Jackett labelled as his best ever pre-season tour.

The players were relaxed and focused in their French retreat, with not even a Kevin McDonald contract story or two able to unsettle their harmony.

So what now?

Friendlies against English opposition in the coming weeks will be the true test for the youngsters.

But will Jackett - not the type of manager to wait for an excuse to blood young talent in the first team - really take such a risk by placing such faith in youth, when last season's squad were just two or three signings away from being in the play offs at least?

If so it will take tremendous patience from fans desperate to see Steve Morgan and Jez Moxey splash the cash to build on last season, and in particular replace Bakary Sako.

Even without the new faces in Clairefontaine, Wolves' squad is already extremely youthful.

With Tomasz Kuszczak and Sam Ricketts having left, David Edwards is now the squad's most senior member. Aged 29.

First-teamers Dominic Iorfa and Kortney Hause are 20 and 19 respectively, Lee Evans 20, Jack Price 21, Wallace 21 and Coady 22.

Even the team's fearsome front pair Nouha Dicko and Benik Afobe, on whom so many hopes are pinned, are 22 and 23, leaving captain Danny Batth pretty much a veteran at 24.

Is having so many young players a bad thing? In theory no, but when the going gets tough next season, will they have enough calm heads around the squad to stay on an even a keel as possible?

Jackett wants two first team players per position and a small number will no doubt be signed in the coming weeks, with a goalkeeper and a striker top of the shopping list.

But a man who so often speaks of youth having a re-energising, positive, uplifting effect on a football club is certainly toying with taking a gamble on the freshest talent emanating from the multi-million pound Compton Park training ground.

And in a football age when young talents are too readily and regrettably discarded without having been given their chance it would be so refreshing, albeit potentially hazardous, to see Wolves daringly plump for vitality rather than bulk up their squad with a few mercenaries, as has so often been the case in the past.

'You can't win anything with kids', so it goes.

Kenny Jackett may be about to put that theory to the test.