Bruno Lage: Raul Jimenez adapting to new protective headgear

The Mexican made his return to the field this season after suffering a horrific fractured skull injury in November 2020 – an injury the striker said almost killed him.

Throughout pre-season and the early parts of the season, Jimenez wore several different styles of headgear varying in size but seemed uncomfortable at times during games as he adapted to wearing it.

In the loss to Burnley, Jimenez was seen with a much smaller headgear around his forehead, with a protective patch on the right side of his head where the injury occurred – and head coach Lage says the club are working with specialists to help Jimenez adapt to his protective headband. “Every time the science is improving and he has to adapt,” Lage said.

“The other one (headband) is lighter and better for him.

“What we want is to put everyone fit and ready to score goals, so the club is doing everything in their hands to help everybody to be better every day.”

When asked if Jimenez feels more comfortable with his new headgear, Lage added: “I think so, yes.” Jimenez began Sunday’s loss at Turf Moor on the right of a front three as he started alongside fellow striker Fabio Silva for the first time in his Wolves career.

The forward linked up well with Silva and Hwang Hee-chan in the first half and later moved centrally as Silva was replaced by Pedro Neto.

As Lage searches for a solution to Wolves’ goalscoring woes, he said the decision to play Jimenez out wide was to unsettle Burnley.

“It was also to create a surprise for the opponent,” Lage said. “Usually they play 4-4-2 and we tried to put a mix between him and Hwang. “So Hwang should be a winger and also a third midfielder, as sometimes we saw Joao, Hwang and Leander in the position, and Raul will be more of an inside striker and nearer Fabio. When you look at the game, we created some chances and found the spaces between the lines. We found Raul, Hwang, Jonny and Semedo – who had good chances to score goals, but we didn’t.

The strategy was about that, change it a little bit and play with two strikers.”