This news doesn’t matter in the slightest as Raul Jimenez signed a new deal with Wolverhampton Wanderers, but I think it’s still interesting. The 29-year-old revealed in a recent interview that Juventus and Manchester United made a move over the summer, but a deal never materalised and he stayed at Molineux to put pen to paper on a contract extension.
After finishing seventh in the Premier League last season, there were fears our squad could be picked apart. Nuno Espirito Santo, Willy Boly, Ruben Neves, Leander Dendoncker, Dioga Jota, Adama Traore and Jimenez were all linked with moves away, but we managed to keep all of them bar Jota which was a success. Jimenez revealed what could have been, however.
The Mexican international told TUDN: “During vacations or transfers every day a new team would come out. What I knew was the news, rumors; one day Juventus woke up and loved me, another Manchester United and what I know is that there were approaches but never an agreement was reached, nothing close, but I’m very good at Wolves.”
Thank goodness Jimenez stayed as he was one player we’d have struggled to replace. The 29-year-old has made 108 appearances in all competitions for Wolves, scoring 48 goals with 18 assists. This season, he’s bagged four goals in eight Premier League games. No other player in the squad has more than one to their name, so we can’t afford to lose Jimenez.
Fabio Silva was brought in from FC Porto to accompany the Mexican, but he’s failed to score or make an assist in four league outings and has dropped down to the U23s to get more minutes.
We were linked with Mbala Nzola, Rafael Leao, Teemu Pukki, Hee-Chan Hwang, Gonzalo Higuain, Carlo Vinicius, Danny Loader and Emmanuel Dennis over the summer but missed out on all our targets. Silva is only 18 years of age, so we shouldn’t expect too much.
Our biggest issue is the lack of depth. If we lost Jimenez and one of Traore, Neto or Podence, we’d have to call up players from the outer circle to fill the squad. It’s fantastic we managed to keep such an important player, but I can’t help fear the worst if injury struck.
In other news, Wolverhampton Wanderers have been linked with M’Bala Nzola, but who is he?
