It has taken a while but Wolves have finally replaced Raúl Jiménez.
By Sam McGuire
The Mexico international left Molineux in 2023, joining Fulham for a reported fee of £5.5million. Wolves had brought in Sasa Kalajdzic 12 months prior to eventually succeed the one-time Atlético Madrid man but an ACL injury on his debut brought his campaign to an end. In a way, it brought his Wolves career to an end, though he was used sparingly off the bench last term before a January move to Eintracht Frankfurt. While back in Germany, he suffered another ACL injury and he’s been sidelined ever since.
Wolves had attacking threats in Hwang Hee-Chan and Matheus Cunha but no real focal point in the final third. They addressed that issue in the summer when Jørgen Strand Larsen arrived from Celta Vigo. Though the deal to bring him to the Premier League was an initial loan, there is a €30million obligation to buy.
At the time, it felt excessive. The powerhouse Norway international had joined Celta in 2022 for a fee rumoured to be €11million. Since then, he’d done ok in LaLiga, netting 17 goals across two seasons, but nothing to treble his value.
It was a gamble. But it appears to have worked out well.
Wolves are now 16th in the table, just three points behind 13th-placed Everton. Vítor Pereira’s side have won four on the spin to move away from a relegation battle. And they’ve done it without their main man, Matheus Cunha. The Brazil international was sent off against Bournemouth in the FA Cup and suspended for four matches. Many thought this would see Wolves collapse.
They didn’t, though.
Pereira’s men picked up maximum points and beat relegation rivals Ipswich Town, Southampton and West Ham during this run. And Strand Larsen has been the main man for Wolves during this period, netting five goals in four outings.
He scored the winner against Ipswich in what was described as a six-pointer. He was the match-winner against Southampton, scoring twice in a 2-1 win. He also scored the only goal of the game against West Ham.
This run of wins for Wolves accounts for 34% of their points haul for the season. And Strand Larsen has been key. The 25-year-old had adapted well to the rigours of the Premier League and in a summer in which so many of the top teams in England are wanting to bolster their attacking ranks, Wolves might find themselves having to fend off interest in their No. 9.
If you’re after a penalty box poacher, you’d be hard pressed to find someone better than Strand Larsen right now.
He’s had a total of 48 shots this term in the Premier League and 46 of them have come from inside the penalty area. The 6’4″ forward has landed 67% of his attempts on target and has an xG haul of 9.16 with an xG on Target total of 13.2. He’s adding value to his shots with his placement and precision.
He’s turning low value efforts into high value attempts, and he’s doing it with great regularity. He’s feeding off of scraps at Wolves, averaging just 1.86 shots per 90, but he still has a reasonable xG90 haul of 0.35. Put him in a better attacking team and you’ll have a much more potent centre-forward.
Strand Larsen appears to have improved since the arrival of Pereira, having replaced Gary O’Neil in December. His manager often praises the forward. Before the clash with Ipswich, he singled him out for his work rate, saying: “When we look for a striker, we look for someone to score goals but he’s the first man on the pitch that starts our pressing.
“If he does not know how to do it or if he doesn’t have this character to sacrifice himself to help the team, for sure, it will not be the striker I am looking for.
“I don’t look for a striker just for a guy to score goals or go ‘okay, I scored my goal.’ No, it’s up to you. I don’t like this kind of striker. My striker must be a fighter. Must be someone who is the first one to start defending and, of course, the responsibility is not only to score goals. He [Strand Larsen] has this spirit and this character, he’s a player that I like the profile of.”
And he spoke about how the 25-year-old now appears to be fully up to speed with the rigours of English football, and the team is better suited to him and that is why we’re now seeing the best of him.
“Larsen is getting better because he’s more adapted to the Premier League, because of his work, but Munetsi is playing close to him, creating spaces, attacking spaces every time. He’s supporting the first ball. Before, when Larsen received the first ball, the man close to him to support this ball was not there. Now we have a physical player that runs a lot, creating spaces and is in the box every time.”
It was the Cunha show at Molineux earlier in the season. Now, however, it is the Strand Larsen show and he’s proving himself to be one of the best centre-forwards in the Premier League on current form.
(Cover image from IMAGO)
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