2 weeks ago
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Raul Jimenez has made a career out of showing up when it matters most. On Saturday at Bramall Lane, the 35-year-old Mexican striker did it again, coming off the bench to fire home in the 90th minute and hand Wolverhampton Wanderers a 1-0 victory over Sheffield United in the EFL Championship.
The result lifts Wolves to 11 points from six matches in the 2026-27 season, keeping their promotion ambitions firmly alive. Sheffield United, meanwhile, drop to 9 points from seven games, a return that puts them squarely in the middle of an increasingly congested Championship table.
Jimenez delivers again in the dying minutes
This is becoming a pattern. Jimenez’s heroics against Sheffield United followed a remarkably similar script to his previous outing, a 2-2 draw against Blackburn Rovers where his late penalty rescued a point for Wolves. Two goals in the Championship this season, both arriving when the clock was winding down.
At 35 years old, born May 5, 1991, Jimenez is no longer the player who can press defenders for 90 minutes the way he once did during his peak Premier League years at Molineux. A player who once recovered from a fractured skull to continue playing top-flight football is not going to be fazed by a few thousand hostile supporters and a ticking clock.
Where both clubs stand in the Championship race
Eleven points from six games translates to roughly 1.83 points per match. Over a full 46-game Championship season, that pace would project to around 84 points, a total that would typically be more than enough for automatic promotion.
Sheffield United’s situation is less rosy. Nine points from seven matches puts them on a pace of roughly 1.29 points per game, which over a full season would land them somewhere around 59 points.
The two clubs have history in these tight encounters. Their most recent prior meeting ended with an identical 1-0 scoreline in Wolves’ favor back in February 2024.
Jimenez’s second act at Molineux
Jimenez’s return to Wolverhampton represents one of the more compelling narratives in English football’s second tier. The striker became a cult hero at Molineux during Wolves’ first stint in the Premier League under Nuno Espirito Santo. His horrific head injury in November 2020, sustained in a clash of heads with Arsenal’s David Luiz, could easily have ended his career entirely.
Two goals in six Championship appearances might not look like world-beating numbers on paper. But when both of those goals arrive in the final minutes to either win or salvage points, their value far exceeds what any simple tally can capture. Wolves have effectively gained four points this season purely from Jimenez’s late interventions.
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