STEVE McClaren wants to land the Wolves job – so that he can complete the plans he had hoped to implement at Nottingham Forest.
The former England boss arrived at the City Ground in June 2011 with ambitious plans to re-establish the Reds as a Premier League force.
His Forest tenure proved to be short-lived, as a failure to sign the players he wanted during pre-season and a disastrous start to the season on the pitch combined to lead to fan protests – and his swift departure in October 2011, after only 13 games in charge.
But McClaren remains hungry to prove he is equipped to revive the fortunes of another of football's fallen giants – and is attracted to the challenge of helping Wolves bounce back from League One.
McClaren is one of three men understood to have been shortlisted for the job, with former Millwall boss Kenny Jackett and Owen Coyle, who parted company with Bolton earlier this season, also in the frame.
But sources close to McClaren say he remains hungry to prove he can replicate the job he did at Middlesbrough, by kick starting a production line of young talent at Molineux – and playing an attractive brand of football to help them climb out of League One.
Wolves were one of the first clubs in the Midlands to secure Category One status for their academy and seem poised to hand McClaren his first job back in English football since he left the City Ground – having managed in Holland in between.
In the meantime, Forest's own academy stars will be in action in Germany this weekend.
Gary Brazil will today take an under-19s squad to play in the Youth Tournament of Ergenzingen.
The party will mostly be comprised of members of the squad that reached the semi final of the FA Youth Cup this season – where they lost to Norwich.
The tournament will start with two groups of four teams, who will face each other over 50-minute matches.
The top and bottom two from each group will then progress to a play-off style knock-out phase on the final day.
Forest face Freiburg tomorrow afternoon, before playing both RB Salzburg and Kaiserslauten on Sunday.
The semi-finals and finals against the other group – made up of Feyenoord, BSC Young Boys, FSV Mainz and Ergenzingen – will be held on Monday.
Brazil, the interim head of the academy, said: "We've had an excellent year and we want to finish on a high.
"We are now looking forward to travelling to Germany – the lads will really enjoy it.
"It will provide them with yet more valuable experience of playing tournament football."
Academy players Josh Thomas, Elliott Ackroyd, Eurico Sebastiao and Jordan Palmer-Samuels have been released by the Reds.
