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Welcome to Wolves Raul Jimenez

An absolutely fantastic player and signing: he has a manager and a team around him getting the best out of him now, and the same can be said for all of our players.
 
There was a lot of talk before he signed from Mexican nationals, who said he had been very unlucky at Benfica to have not featured more. They felt as the 'main man', he could flourish - and that's the way it's panned out, or is panning out. As others have said, it's not just the goals but his overall game; he's brilliant. I don't think he'd have lasted the whole season playing the way we were before Jota came in to the side - he'd have burnt out. But Jota coming in has helped with the workload and the two of them are quite a formidable partnership.

What I can't work out is how he is behind Javier Hernandez in the pecking order for the national team. Raul is twice the player.
 
Ahh flashbacks to the Social Media meltdown when he came on at left back v Germany for 15 mins and a whole host decided he was shit (bit like the fans who decided Jonny was rank after he shanked a cross into the crowd on his debut in pre season)
 
Jinky said:
There was a lot of talk before he signed from Mexican nationals, who said he had been very unlucky at Benfica to have not featured more. They felt as the 'main man', he could flourish - and that's the way it's panned out, or is panning out. As others have said, it's not just the goals but his overall game; he's brilliant. I don't think he'd have lasted the whole season playing the way we were before Jota came in to the side - he'd have burnt out. But Jota coming in has helped with the workload and the two of them are quite a formidable partnership.

What I can't work out is how he is behind Javier Hernandez in the pecking order for the national team. Raul is twice the player.
Click to expand...

He didn't work well in Benfica, tbh. Could never make a difference when we needed him to, when Jonas got injured. Last year was symptomatic of this. Benfica was in the title run until Jonas got injured and Jiminez could never be the same.

Although, Benfica played really badly with Vitoria at the bench, would like to have seen Jiminez with a proper manager there. But I'm really happy for him and his season at Wolves. He deserved the playtime and spotlight, and he's proving this. Good for him and us, definitely helping our PL ambitions!
 
Like Jinky said above, it's his overall game that has impressed me so much. His hold up play, his passing, his work rate - it is all really, really good and since Jota has come back from injury he seems to have gone up to another level.
 
Kenny said:
Ahh flashbacks to the Social Media meltdown when he came on at left back v Germany for 15 mins and a whole host decided he was shit (bit like the fans who decided Jonny was rank after he shanked a cross into the crowd on his debut in pre season)
Click to expand...

Correct. And the insistence across all of social media that "WE CAN'T GO IN TO THE SEASON WITH RAUL AS OUR FIRST CHOICE STRIKER" because he was mainly used off the bench for Benfica.
 
Since August 2017 we have had a constant stream of "WE NEED A STRIKER, WE WON'T BE SUCCESFUL UNTIL WE GET ONE". In that time Leo and Raul have helped us get promoted and upto 7th in the Prem League. When we finally sign the striker we need, I am so excited about the success he will bring
 
We've got 13 PL games left. In his current form, I'd back him to bag probably 6-7, at least. If he plays in the cup games (making an assumption we get through, of course) let's say he gets 2. That'd put him on the fabled 20 for the season, plus his assists.
 
Kenny said:
Since August 2017 we have had a constant stream of "WE NEED A STRIKER, WE WON'T BE SUCCESFUL UNTIL WE GET ONE". In that time Leo and Raul have helped us get promoted and upto 7th in the Prem League. When we finally sign the striker we need, I am so excited about the success he will bring
Click to expand...

To be fair, Raul didn't look like a real top-drawer striker when he arrived. Nuno has done a fantastic job in bringing out his talents and turn him into the player he's become. He's improving all the time, and I wouldn't be surprised if there's more to come.
 
Jonas must be one hell of a striker.

Surely would've been a better option this year than that waster Seferović though.
 
Lycan said:
Jonas must be one hell of a striker.

Surely would've been a better option this year than that waster Seferović though.
Click to expand...

Problem with Jonas is his physical condition, but otherwise... Just some statistics:

Year | games | goals
2018/19 | 15 | 9
2017/18 | 41 | 37
2016/17 | 28 | 18
2015/16 | 48 | 36

Cant really beat that.

Jimenez did score some seriously important goals tho, on very difficult games, on two titles Benfica won by a couple points. But he could never work for Benfica whenever he started.

He is definitely better than Seferovic, but there was no guarantee of Jonas leaving or not playing, which meant he might warm the bench for the third season straight. Jimenez probably wanted out, somewhere he could play more.

Really happy he signed for us here. Best of all worlds and has been an absolute joy watching him grow and exceed my expectations.
 
His physicality is perfect for the PL too. We've seen many a technical striker come across to really struggle with the physicality of the English game. Morata the latest of these type of strikers but others thrive. Thankfully Raul is the latter.
 
Tom Hark said:
To be fair, Raul didn't look like a real top-drawer striker when he arrived. Nuno has done a fantastic job in bringing out his talents and turn him into the player he's become. He's improving all the time, and I wouldn't be surprised if there's more to come.
Click to expand...

+1

lets not be revisionist here. He didn't light the league on fire at first but is playing fantastically at the moment, full credit. hopefully it continues. I feel like he's on the cusp of really opening up.
 
Raul was fine at the start of the season. He looked good then and was a key part in how well we were doing (considering the general feeling was Jota, Costa & Traore were uber shit, so he was holding the front line together) and the only game where he looked off was the Watford game after flying back from Mexico the day before. He had a mare v Cardiff but so did 90% of the squad that week. He has moved up a level since the formation change but he wasn't some bang average joe before that.
 
Jinky said:
What I can't work out is how he is behind Javier Hernandez in the pecking order for the national team. Raul is twice the player.
Click to expand...

Raul is currently ahead of Chicarito in the Mexican national team pecking order, and rightly so.
 
Raul has learned a lot during his time with us & is improving day by day - has been helped by the 'tweak' of the formation as well & working well with Jota currently

As long as he stays fit to play then will score between 15 & 20 this season which is more than we could of expected from any forward we could attract given that we had only just been promoted to the PL
 
With what else he offers to the team, I'd have been happy with anything over 10 tbh, chuffed that he's likely to end up with 15+
 
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