Wolves journalist Joe Edwards has been sharing his thoughts on Old Gold striker Raul Jimenez and what next season could hold for the Mexican.
This comes after Edwards made an appearance on a recent video from the Express & Star’s YouTube channel alongside Nathan Judah where the pair spoke about the club’s current attacking players.
On the subject of Jimenez, who has not featured for Wolves since picking up a serious head injury back in November, Edwards had this to say about the striker and his proposed return to action next season.
He said: “Of course, after such an injury there is a lot of wondering of whether he’s going to be this same player, of course, there are no guarantees and he’ll play with that headguard on for the rest of his career, but I think even if Wolves end up having half the Raul Jimenez that they had previously, I think he’ll still score a fair amount of goals.
“I mean, watching some videos back recently of when he was at his full pomp, he was unbelievable. Not just one of the best strikers in the Premier League, but in all of Europe, and that is no exaggeration. He was absolutely brilliant.
“So, even if Wolves don’t have quite the Raul Jimenez of old, I still think he’d be a pretty damn good player and one who’ll score plenty of goals and hopefully get Wolves backfiring next season.”
Wolves originally signed Jimenez on a loan deal from Portuguese club Benfica during the 2018 summer transfer window before securing him on a permanent basis a year later.
Overall, the 30-year-old, who is currently valued at £25.2 million, has made 110 appearances for Bruno Lage’s side across all competitions, in which he has managed to score 48 goals and provide 18 assists along the way (per Transfermarkt).
TIF Thoughts on Joe Edwards’ comments on Raul Jimenez…
Given how Wolves only managed to score 36 goals throughout their 2020/21 Premier League campaign compared to the 51 they managed to score in the previous season where he made 38 appearances and scored 17 goals in the process, it would be safe to assume that Jimenez’s absence for the majority of the season had an impact on the team’s goalscoring ability.
Are you confident Jimenez will be the same player when he returns to action?
Yes
No
In our view, if Jimenez is able to play consistently next season and get back to the levels of quality he was at before his head injury, this would surely be a massive boost for the team.
However, given the seriousness of his injury, which will now force him to play the rest of his career wearing a protective headguard, as Edwards mentioned, there can’t be any real reassurance that he will be able to play exactly the way he did before.
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