Wolverhampton Wanderers needed to sign another striker in the January window having lost Raul Jimenez to a major head injury.
Fabio Silva has talent, but the teenager needed help in the Wolves attack given his lack of experience.
Wolves pounced to sign Real Sociedad striker Willian Jose, landing him on loan until the end of the season – when Jimenez should return.
The 29-year-old will though be looking to make a permanent move to Molineux if possible, and he made a big impression against Arsenal in midweek.
Willian Jose won a penalty and got David Luiz sent off in Wolves’ 2-1 win on the night, making a real impact in the Wolves attack.
He will hope to become a Premier League ace now, having missed out on a move to Tottenham Hotspur in January 2020.
Spurs looked into signing the Brazilian when Harry Kane suffered an injury, but Jose Mourinho couldn’t get the deal done.
Guillem Balague has now admitted that the striker never recovered from missing out on that move, with his body language at Sociedad taking a major hit.
Balague claims Willian Jose was mentally just not with Sociedad anymore, so a move to Wolves makes sense for him having been so gutted to have not joined Tottenham a year ago.
“He needed to leave Real Sociedad because he had the chance to go to Spurs, and because he was convinced that he was going to Spurs, he decided not to join his team in a cup game against Espanyol – he decided not to go,” said Balague.
“Since then he really didn’t recover, you could see in his body language that things weren’t actually working for him; he was melancholic. Then, a month and a half later, Dembele gets injured and Barcelona can sign a striker, and they contact him, and he thought he was going to Barcelona – it didn’t happen, they went for Braithwaite. Mentally he wasn’t at Real Sociedad anymore,” he added.
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