It is fair to say this has not been a vintage season for Paulinho.
After hitting a career-best 25 goals last term and forcing his way into the Portugal squad ahead of next summer’s European Championships, the assumption was that the Braga talisman would take his game to a whole new level in 2020/21.
But, after scoring just once in the first eight Primeira Liga fixtures, that oh-so inevitable phrase reared its ugly head.
Was Paulinho really a ‘one season wonder’?
During Braga’s Taca de Liga quarter-final clash with Estoril, the late-blooming 28-year-old sent a timely riposte to a growing clan of critics.
Paulinho needed a bit of luck on the night – he opened the scoring in Braga’s 3-1 win after a poor penalty kick rebounded back off the Estoril goalkeeper – but once the floodgates were open, arguably the most feared forward in Portuguese football looked a man reborn.
He scored twice more to send Braga into the last four, completing his hat-trick in ruthless fashion. It was a pristine, predatory performance from a penalty-box poacher who has spent the last few months being linked, on and off, with a move to Wolverhampton Wanderers.
And, with Nuno Espirito Santo losing talisman Raul Jimenez to a fractured skull, the upcoming January market is almost guaranteed to catapult Paulinho back into the shop window.
Especially with a pesky £25 million release clause ensuring that Braga have a limited say on the future of their star striker.
Wolves might have invested a club-record sum in Porto’s Fabio Silva but don’t let that £35 million fee fool you; the 18-year-old is very much ‘one for the future’.
Silva’s innate awareness and velvety vision stands out a mile but, as recent Premier League clashes with Chelsea and Aston Villa showed, the teenager lacks the physicality or the hard-nosed bullishness to lead the line in Jimenez’s absence just yet.
The same could not be said of 28-year-old Paulinho; a Wolves target who appears to have rediscovered his Midas Touch at the perfect time.
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