'Must win' - Wolves star looks towards his first Black Country Derby

Wolves star Raul Jimenez is looking forward to his first experience of the Black Country Derby this weekend.

For all the experiences he has had with Wolves, a derby date against West Brom is not one of them.

He missed the two most recent Premier League clashes between the sides in 2021 as he recovered from a serious head injury, and had left for Fulham the summer before the FA Cup tie of January 2024.

“We are capable of winning every game, but we need to show inside the pitch what we are capable of and always a derby is to win,” said Jimenez to BBC WM. “I’m not going to say it’s more important than any other game, but these kind of games are must win.”

Wolves travel to Everton in the Carabao Cup before facing Albion at Molineux on Sunday lunchtime - the third consecutive weekend Wolves have kicked off at that time.

Having drawn the previous one against Birmingham City - on the back of a midweek defeat to West Ham - Jimenez knows just how vital it was not to let Wolves’ winless run stretch to three games.

“It’s really important to keep winning games after one defeat and one draw in our last time,” he told the Wolves website. “It was important the gap didn’t get bigger in the table, although we know we’ve played one less game than most of the teams.

“We need to keep working hard. We did what we needed to do in this kind of game – fighting for every ball and we have our three points, so it’s special.”

And reflecting further on his winning moment against Sheffield United, he added: “You need to be in the right place at the right moment.

“I just put some technique there just to put the ball inside of the net. It was an amazing feeling, feeling myself so lonely in that moment with no defenders – they’d been grabbing me all the time but in that moment I was by myself and I just needed to put it in the net.

“I’m really happy to give back to the fans what they are expecting from me. In the first half we created a couple of good opportunities and just needed to be there in the exact moment. This one, I’m going to say, was a great assist from Tommy (Doyle).”