Raul Jimenez’s Wolves return: Mexican striker’s comeback aged 35 has captured supporters’ imagination at Molineux | Football News

The most romantic signing of the summer came early. Raul Jimenez is back at Wolves. And for the club’s supporters, they are not so much welcoming back a former favourite but revisiting a chapter of their own lives. For a generation, Jimenez is the Wolves No 9.

He was the striker who arrived just when Wolves were rediscovering themselves. Promotion became Europe. The best came to Molineux and were beaten. Now, he is returning with Wolves at a low ebb. But this second coming has rejuvenated the club.

The evidence has been overwhelming since Jimenez’s signing was confirmed after three seasons away. It was not just the emotional announcement video, although that certainly captured the imagination, instantly transforming the mood after relegation.

Consider the social media numbers. Since signing for Wolves, each of the club’s top 10 most engaged posts have been about Jimenez. The club has been blown away by the response across platforms. Their most engaged Instagram post anyone can remember.

And that is just social media. Out in the real world, Jimenez shirts are everywhere. Not Wolves shirts, Jimenez shirts. For the pre-season friendly against Real Sociedad, where his name was chanted even in his absence, there were Mexico tops – home and away.

Inside the club shop, the Jimenez jersey is outselling last year’s most popular player by more than 250 per cent. You probably need to go back to Steve Bull to find a figure so beloved by the supporters but the shirts did not have names on the back in those days.

None of which should come as much of a surprise. Jimenez’s name has been sung regularly by supporters in recent seasons and it had little to do with the hope that he would come back. He, along with others, had come to symbolise what had been lost.

It was a lament to Wolves’ decline, sometimes accompanied by another chant aimed at owners Fosun. “You sold the team, now sell the club.” But when Fulham visited Molineux in the final home fixture of last season, the tone became more celebratory.

It was only after that game that Jimenez revealed to a local journalist that there had been talks over a deal to bring him home. The giddiness that greeted that revelation helped make it happen and sustained supporters in the wake of a miserable relegation.

If all this still seems a bit much for a player who scored 40 Premier League goals for Wolves, the context is key. Jimenez was the club’s top scorer as the club finished in the top seven in consecutive campaigns for the first time since Stan Cullis was in charge.

You have to go back to 1989 to find a Wolves player who has beaten Jimenez’s 27 goals in the 2019/20 season. That was Bull, the folk hero of all folk heroes, in the third tier. To find a player doing it in the top flight you are going back to ‘King’ John Richards in 1973.

Jimenez’s 40 goals are more than anyone else has scored for Wolves in the Premier League era. It is 57 in all competitions and those other competitions are all part of the story. He scored at Wembley, not just away to Tottenham, but in an FA Cup semi-final.

More than that, he is the club’s all-time top scorer in European competition. That is about the memories as much as the numbers for the fans who travelled. Two goals away to Crusaders in Northern Ireland. Two goals away to Pyunik Yerevan in Armenia.

Jimenez scored home and away against Torino, a trip that fans talk about to this day. He scored home and away against Slovan Bratislava. He scored in the torrential rain in Braga, another adventure still sung about by Wolves supporters. This stuff matters.

It was later that year that Jimenez suffered a fractured skull in a collision with David Luiz away to Arsenal. The silence in the stadium was eerie enough during that period of the pandemic. That day it took on a more ominous tone. A sickening blow in every sense.

The road back was long and arduous, the scars mental and physical. Jimenez arguably never did recapture his best form in a Wolves shirt. He is yet to score a headed goal for the club since. That could soon become another cathartic Molineux moment to relish.

But if the injury hampered his performances on the pitch, it only solidified the bond with the club off it. Jimenez and his family have been open about how much the support that they received meant to them. The emotions of that experience have led them back here.

And this is a family move. Daniela, Jimenez’s wife and mother to his two children, has long embraced the city, endearing herself with her efforts to repeat the ‘Wolves Ay We’ mantra. The pair even did the gender reveal of their second child on the Molineux pitch.

That first exit, after Jimenez had fallen out of the first-team line-up under Julen Lopetegui, never did feel like a satisfactory ending for such a hero. He was crying that day against Everton in May 2023, saying his goodbyes after being an unused substitute.

This is a chance to correct that and to underline Jimenez’s status as a figure woven into the emotional architecture of the club. That Diogo Jota, his old strike partner, is no longer with us only adds poignancy. All parties are determined to cherish this reunion.

Can he still deliver? There will be optimism based on a World Cup in which he found the net three times in four games. Jimenez looked sharp enough this summer to suggest that he is still close enough to his best to cope with the demands of the Championship.

Jimenez is the bookmakers’ favourite to be the competition’s top scorer. So reliable from the spot – he has scored more Premier League penalties than anyone else with a 100 per cent record – he is surely a safe bet for at least 20 goals this season if he can stay fit.

Whether he will receive the service required to fire Wolves back up is another matter. Under new coach Cesar Peixoto, there is still uncertainty over the makeup of the squad and the ability to implement a shift in style. Success is far from guaranteed.

But, in a way, all of that is to miss the point. Bull himself spent 10 long years playing for Wolves in the second tier without achieving the promotion that his efforts deserved. He still garnished his legend during that decade, plundering goals and making memories.

Bull stayed. Jimenez has returned.

And Wolves have their No 9 back.