Express & Star

Wolves star Diogo Jota: Seventh again will be tough

Wolves star Diogo Jota says it won’t be easy to repeat their feats of last season as they take on Manchester United for the third time in six months.

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Jota scored a wondergoal on Thursday (© AMA / Robbie Jay Barratt)

Jota inspired Wolves to two famous victories over the Red Devils in March and April, scoring a fabulous goal in the 2-1 FA Cup victory when he left Luke Shaw on his backside before firing past David De Gea.

The 22-year-old bettered that with a stunning overhead during Thursday’s 4-0 victory over Pyunik.

First things first, he said of his wondergoal: “I’m not an acrobatic guy, things happen, but to be honest, I’ve not tried it too much.

“Of course, I felt the moment. You can’t avoid that you are winning already, 7-0 on aggregate, so maybe you feel more freedom to try things, but I think that kind of situation can happen in every moment in every game.”

Wolves opened their Premier League campaign with a 0-0 draw at Leicester last weekend, while United impressively beat Chelsea 4-0.

Jota, like his boss Nuno Espirito Santo, doesn’t believe last season’s two victories over United will count for much when the teams square up at Molineux.

“I don’t think we have that line of thinking (about last season),” he added. “This is a new season, so nothing to do with the last one.

“They are very strong at the moment, with their first result of the season, so I think it’s going to be hard for us.

“It’s a new season so (United have) had more time to work with the players. (Ole Gunnar Solskjaer) made his own changes, every team in the transfer market tried to improve their team, so we know it’s going to be hard and we have to understand we’re going to face a big team and it’s going to be hard.”

Wolves finished one place behind United in 2018/19, but were nine points behind the Red Devils.

Does Jota think Wolves can close that gap? “It’s too soon to think of the final places,” he said. “We got seventh place, but it’s very hard to get it again.

“Loads of teams have spent more money than us, trying to achieve that position, so we have to realise it’s not going to be easy to get seventh. We go game by game and in the end we’ll see.”