Jimenez rescues Wolves in the 93rd minute, and the Championship starts the way the Premier League ended

Wolves went down as the worst team in the Premier League last season. Their first night back in the Championship suggested the habits travelled with them. They led Blackburn Rovers inside 20 minutes at Molineux on Friday, were behind by the 48th, and needed a penalty three minutes into stoppage time to draw 2-2. Raul Jimenez took it, which at least gave the evening a story worth telling.

Ahead, level, behind, all inside half an hour of football

Marshall Munetsi put Wolves in front on 18 minutes, running onto a pass threaded through by Fer Lopez and finishing past Balazs Hoth. It was tidy and it lasted nine minutes. Sean McLoughlin headed Blackburn level on 27 from a Ryoya Morishita cross off the right, and by then Rovers had earned it.

Three minutes into the second half, Andri Gudjohnsen turned the game over completely, finishing from close range to make it 2-1. A crowd of 30,984 had come to watch the first night of a promotion campaign and spent most of it watching their side chase the game.

A handball, and an argument that will run

The rescue came in the 93rd minute. Jackson Tchatchoua crossed, the ball struck Ryan Alebiosu on the arm, and the referee pointed to the spot. Tony Mowbray did not dispute that the ball hit the arm. He disputed where it happened, saying it “looks outside the box to me”, which is the kind of complaint that gets a manager nowhere and is usually made because he is right enough to be annoyed.

Jimenez scored it. Mowbray had told his players before kick-off that everyone outside the club had them down for relegation, and for 93 minutes that team talk was working perfectly.

Jimenez is 35 and back where it worked

This was Jimenez’s competitive return to Molineux. Wolves re-signed him on a free transfer on 9 June after his Fulham contract ran out, on a two-year deal with an option for a third, and he is 35 now. In his first spell at the club he scored 57 goals in 166 appearances, a run interrupted by the skull fracture he suffered in 2020.

He is the second free signing of a summer built on them. Kieran Trippier arrived on the same basis, a former England full-back dropping into the second tier to give a young dressing room somebody who has been somewhere. Wolves have gone looking for experience rather than resale value, which tells you they intend to come straight back up.

Peixoto has a season to fix this

Cesar Peixoto’s assessment afterwards was that his players had used their hearts more than their heads, which is a polite way of describing a side that took the lead and then stopped thinking. Wolves supporters have heard versions of that diagnosis for a year and a half. The Championship is 46 matches long and forgiving of a slow start, but it punishes teams who fold after half an hour, and that is precisely what happened here.

One point, then, and a striker who can still hit a penalty when the ground is quiet and the season is on the line. It is not the start Wolves wanted. It is not the disaster it was heading towards either.

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