Southampton remains winless this season as Wolverhampton saw Raul Jimenez return to the lineup and score in Sunday’s 1-0 result. It was Jimenez’s first goal since October of last season.
“I’m there doing my job and want to score, and I hope the next game is going to be the one,” Jimenez said prior to Sunday’s match. “I’d like to get on a run of scoring and they’re going to come. “I remember [two years ago] scoring twice at Southampton and it was good, we were really good, and I want to remember that and do it again.”
Looks like history repeats itself as Jimenez scored the only goal in the Wolves’ 1-0 win on Sunday.
Jimenez won man of the match honors with a goal, 56 touches — 9 of which came in the opposition box — 3 shots overall, 2 shots on target and won 12 of 21 duels.
Wolves boss Bruno Lage had nothing but positive things to say after the match, indicating a goal and a win like Sunday’s will make the striker even more confident.
“Most important thing I ask the players is to have a personality,” Lage said prior to the match. “They need to adapt to us, not us having to adapt to them.”
“We tried to play the way we want to play,” Lage said after the win. “The changes I did to the team were to have more of the ball. We saw what Southampton did against Man City and Newcastle and they are a good team. What Ralph (Hasenhuttl) did in his three years here is very good.”
Southampton still remain winless after six games this season.
“When you play against this team, they have the ball and come with a big intensity to press high,” Lage added. “We tried to do little things different and get Joao and Leander to find spaces in between the lines. That’s why Daniel and Hwang started, to have more of the ball.”
Sunday’s goal yielded just the second win this season for Wolverhampton in their first season under Lage.
“It was a good result for us, three good points,” Lage said. “We are happy with that. “These three points go straight to our fans because the way they supported us from the first minute was very important to stay the 90 minutes with personality. They are a hard team to play against and it’s a very hard stadium to come and win the three points.”
Lage made a few changes to the lineup following the loss to Brentford. Leander Dendoncker was put in place of Ruben Neves, Hwang Hee-chan and Daniel Podence joined the attacking trio with Jimenez with Adama Traore and Francisco Trincao being left out.
“Our job is to take decisions and it’s hard,” Lage explained. “When you win you are good and when you lose you are bad.”
Wolves are back in action Saturday, 2 October vs Newcastle while will continue to look for their first win this season when they face Chelsea.
