Bruno Lage admits he’s always been a fan of Raul Jimenez and has backed the striker to lead Wolverhampton Wanderers’ assault on the Premier League in 2021/22. Jimenez has recovered from a career-threatening head injury to participate in Wolves’ first pre-season under new head coach Lage. The striker has impressed too, particularly in the 1-1 draw with Stoke City where he scored and ran the show in a 73-minute outing. While Lage has other options in attack in the form of Fabio Silva and Patrick Cutrone, there’s no doubt over who is the Portuguese’s main man. Asked whether Jimenez will play in the Premier League opener versus Leicester,
Bruno Lage said: “I feel he is ready. He is confident. What he did against Stoke was very good. So I hope he can help us to be a stronger team.”
Jimenez is showing no signs of rustiness or nervousness when it comes to heading the ball, which has always been a huge part of his arsenal. No player scored more headed goals than the Mexican in the 2019/20 Premier League season and the protective headband he’s now wearing doesn’t appear to be hindering him.
Bruno Lage said: “He can do everything. It was a big surprise. It’s been a long process for him, I’ve just come towards the end. The doctor was always phoning him. We started with 30 minutes against Crewe, then the plan was to play 45 minutes (against Betis) and I talked to him at half-time, he felt OK so we gave him another 15 minutes. Then he played 75 minutes, and he scored.”
Having scored 48 goals in 110 games for Wolves and top scored in his two full seasons with the club, Jimenez will naturally feel the pressure to hit the ground running. But Lage doesn’t want his talismanic number nine to feel any kind of burden and told him that on the first day of pre-season training.
Bruno Lage explained: “I talked to Raul on the first day. The first thing to do was to give him a lot of confidence. You know, strikers always need to score goals to feel comfortable. With goals, they start to believe they are coming back and, in his case, getting over what happened. But I said, ‘Don’t worry about the goals, because what you give the club when you are defending is so much, and the goals will come’. And they came, he scored two goals (in pre-season). That’s good for him, it gives him confidence to return step by step. I see he is happy in training – he works for the team both in defensive and offensive situations.”
Coaching Jimenez has been a long time in the making for Lage, who was working in Benfica’s youth set-up when Wolves signed the striker on loan in 2018. Six months later Lage was Benfica’s head coach and was powerless to prevent Wolves from exercising their option to sign Jimenez for £32.6million in the summer of 2019. Speaking to a small group of journalists at Molineux on Wednesday, Lage revealed that Jimenez fits the profile he created for the perfect striker.
Bruno Lage said: “I am happy to work with him. I remember when I was at Benfica and we sold Joao Felix. I created a profile for a [replacement] striker. [Director of Football] Rui Costa said, ‘The guy you want was here – but we sold him to Wolves’. One and half years later I’m here working with Raul so I am very happy. He is a top player and a top person. With him and (Conor) Coady, you can see two guys that the younger guys can look to as a good example and see that you can be a top player and also a top person. I’m very happy with what Raul is doing.”
