Wolves striker Raul Jimenez relishing extra Europa League workload
Striker Raul Jimenez does not believe Wolves’ Europa League campaign is impacting their Premier League performances.
Jimenez’s 77th-minute header cancelled out Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s opener at Arsenal on Saturday as Wolves recorded their seventh league draw of the season.
The result leaves Nuno Espirito Santo’s side 11th in the table on 14 points.
Jimenez does not believe their European exploits are having an impact on their domestic form.
And as they prepare to welcome Slovan Bratislava to Molineux for a crunch group stage clash, Jimenez says the extra challenge is what they fought for last season.
He said: “I think we are doing it well – both competitions are tough, but we know that this is what we want.
“Last season we all wanted to be in the Europa League and now that we are there we have to keep going and fight until the end.”
Jimenez has seven goals for Wolves in Europe and netted his fourth league goal of the season at the Emirates.
That moves him on to 11 for the campaign, but he is eager to add to his tally.
He said: “I’m very happy for that (11 goals), I’m happy to be part of this team, to help this team to get points, to get wins, to get these kinds of draws, and I’m very happy to keep going through this season like this.
“It was a good goal (at Arsenal) – sometimes a goal appears like that, when you never know that it’s going to appear, that sort of opportunity, and it appears. Now we have to keep going and go for more goals.”
And Jimenez says Wolves’ game-plan at the Emirates was to attack from the off.
He said: “They scored first, but we all know that these games last until 95 minutes, so we keep on fighting until the end.
“From the beginning we were trying to go for goal, we (imposed) our style of game and although they scored first, we never give up.
“Until the end, we had to fight to draw the match. Maybe we deserved a goal later in the match, but we keep on fighting until the end .
“After we scored the goal, we knew that we would have to hold possession and keep the ball.
“I think we had more opportunities than they did, but we deserved that draw.”
