Key Player
It’s fair to say that Wolves looked rather toothless as they slumped to a 4-0 defeat against Liverpool in their most recent Premier League outing. The lack of a focal point up front meant that Liverpool dealt easily with Wolves’ attacking forays, and Nuno Espirito Santo was left to count the cost of losing striker Raúl Jiménez to an awful head injury at Arsenal the week before.
With the young and inexperienced Caoimhín Kelleher in the Liverpool goal, Wolves failed to put him to the test aside from a Daniel Podence chip which forced a good save from the Irishman. While Nuno’s side had been in the game for the first half an hour or so, the mistake from Conor Coady which led to Mohamed Salah opening the scoring seemed to knock the stuffing out of the team, and without the mercurial presence of Jiménez, Wolves couldn’t regain a foothold.
The challenge now facing Nuno is to get his team scoring goals and winning matches without their star striker – an unenviable task. Since promotion to the Premier League, Wolves haven’t been a side that has scored freely, often relying on second-half goals to get themselves over the line in matches. Jiménez was often the provider of these, and without him, Wolves could struggle to put the ball in the back of the net. Such an issue could see them fall out of favour in the Premier League odds from Betfair.
Of course, the main thing is that Jiménez recovers well and gets back to full health in the right manner. There will certainly be no rush to usher him back into the team, and you would imagine that it would be a gradual process of recovery for the Mexican international, who has made it clear that he intends to carry on playing once he gets the all-clear from the doctors.
“Thanks for your support messages. I will be under observation and I hope to return to the pitch soon,” Jiménez tweeted.
When that return will be remains a mystery, and in the meantime, Wolves need to come up with solutions to cover for the 29-year-old’s absence.
One player who could step up and make an impact is summer signing Fábio Silva, who joined from Porto for a club record £36 million. There is already a lot of pressure on the 18-year-old to live up to his price tag, and his first-team appearances have been limited this season, with the Portuguese forward turning out more often for the Under-23s. However, having replaced Jiménez at the Emirates Stadium after the injury, and having also come on as a substitute against Liverpool, perhaps Silva will be given the chance to impress.
“He is a goalscorer and he can definitely help us,” Nuno said of Silva back at the end of October. “It requires time and it is a big change. But here at Compton, he’s doing very well. He’s settling down. He has the squad to help him and he is speaking the language better. Step by step, he will get there.”
Thrusting the youngster into first-team action is not what Nuno would like to do in an ideal world, but his hand may be forced by Wolves’ lack of alternative out-and-out strikers. Against Liverpool, Nuno opted to line up without a recognised centre-forward, but the Anfield side found it easy to deal with Wolves’ attack.
With Jiménez set for a lengthy spell on the sidelines, the pressure is on Nuno to replace his goals before Wolves begin to slide down the table.