After another super season for Wolverhampton Wanderers this year, Raúl Jiménez once again finds himself linked with a move elsewhere.
Arsenal and Manchester United have both been named as suitors in the last few months, while Serie A giants Juventus are thought to have him on a list of potential signings.
The rumours are not all that surprising given the Mexican striker managed 26 goals and ten assists in 53 games in all competitions this season, an impressive tally by anyone’s reckoning.
Few would begrudge him a move to one of Europe’s top sides should it happen, as his numbers for Wolves would undoubtedly make it justifiable.
There is one man who isn’t convinced by any of the rumours, though, and that’s ESPN Deportes’ journalist Ricardo Puig.
He covers Jiménez’s future in an opinion piece today and argues that moving to the likes of Arsenal or Manchester United makes no sense for the Wolves star.
Admitting he understands people who say the Mexican striker should move to a ‘better’ team, he disputes the idea that either club is bigger, saying ‘Arsenal or Manchester United are not necessarily better today than Wolves’.
Instead, he believes such an idea comes from their relative history and that ‘we let ourselves be carried away many times by the past of the clubs and not so much by their present.’
Puig states Jiménez needs to be very careful about his next choice. Should he leave Wolves, it needs to be at a club that ‘ensures the minutes and the prominence’ that they offer him.
At the minute he is an ‘indisputable’ selection at club level, the ‘figure’ of his side and subsequently going through his ‘best moment as a professional’.
All of that, and the guaranteed place at the World Cup he currently has, could all ‘disappear’ were he to choose his next club wrongly, Puig argues.
Indeed, he has a perfect example for Jiménez to bear in mind, and that is Javier Hernández.
The striker played for both Manchester United and Real Madrid but his best time was with Bayer Leverkusen in Germany.
Since leaving there, things have gone downhill and his departure ‘does not seem to have been the best decision.’
Jiménez ‘already plays in the best league in the world, in a leading team; plays in European competitions and grows more and more as a player’.
Therefore there should be ‘no rush’ to leave Wolves this season, as far as Puig is concerned. In fact, he’s made it clear that doing so could be a massive mistake.
Whether Jiménez listens, of course, is another matter but it seems if Wolves want to convince him to stay, Puig is the man they should put on the case.
