Wolves’ prospects of adding a striker to their squad appear to have increased with news coming out of Italy this week.
According to Calciomercato [via NapoliSport.net], Napoli striker Carlos Vinicius could “be next to wear the Wolverhampton shirt“.
The report on NapoliSport.net claimed that the Serie A club are looking to offload the 24-year-old Brazilian this summer after loan spells at Rio Ave and Monaco last season.
Vinicius joined Napoli last summer but has yet to play a competitive game for Carlo Ancelotti’s side, having immediately gone on loan to Rio Ave.
He enjoyed a very fruitful five-month spell in Portugal, scoring 14 goals and supplying two assists in 20 appearances for the club.
However, a subsequent loan spell at Monaco was far more difficult, scoring only twice in 16 games for the Ligue 1 outfit. He ended the season with 16 goals from 36 club appearances, an average of 0.44 goals per game.
Wolves’ leading scorer last season, Raul Jimenez, ended the campaign with 17 goals from 44 games, averaging 0.39 goals per game.
Diogo Jota was their next most prolific player with 10 goals in 44 appearances, working out at 0.23 per game.
Over the course of the season, Vinicius had the best scoring ratio of the three players. However, his wretched record of 0.12 goals per game at Monaco, who he joined on January 30th, merits comparison with Jota and Jimenez in that time.
Jimenez played 18 matches between the Premier League and FA Cup from that date, scoring seven goals for an average of 0.39 per game.
Jota had 16 appearances between league and cup in the same period and scored five goals, averaging 0.31 per game.
At 6 ft 4 (1.9m), Vinicius is taller than both Jimenez at 6 ft 3 (1.88m) and Jota at 5 ft 11 (1.78m). Since the beginning of the Brazilian’s professional career in 2017, he has scored 36 goals, four of them headers.
In that time, Jimenez has only scored one headed goal, while Jota’s last header to end up in the back of the net was during the 2016/17 season with FC Porto.
Despite his loss of form at Monaco, Vinicius showed in the Portuguese league that he can be a prolific scorer, even though that division is slightly lower on UEFA’s association club coefficient than Ligue 1.
Also, his aerial ability would bring an added dimension to the Wolves attack that Jimenez and Jota rarely execute, while manager Nuno Espirito Santo has urged the club to add more signings this summer, as reported by The Telegraph.
Jimenez could be very difficult to displace after performing so well at Molineux last season, but Vinicius would not be a bad alternative to call upon for Nuno.
Wolves fans, would you like to see Vinicius at your club? Let us know your thoughts by commenting below!
