The Portuguese has rolled back the years this season, defying his 35 years and starting each Premier League match at the heart of the midfield, and played his role in a vital win at St Mary’s last weekend. Now, attention turns to Newcastle United at Molineux, and Moutinho is feeling positive, particularly with Wolves’ number nine back amongst the goals.
On turning attention to Newcastle
“It’s important for us, but it’s important for them too. What we want, we want to continue what we did in the last game, play, create chances, score and win the game because this is the most important. It’s going to be a tough game, with good players, a good team, but we want to win. We’re going to try to do our best to win.”
On Jimenez getting his goal
“It’s important for us, it’s important for him to get confidence, but we knew sooner or later he was going to score, because he worked after the injury, every single day, doing his best to help the team. Sometimes you don’t score, but the work you do is amazing. Nobody talks about that, but for me what I see is very important.
“Our strikers, our wingers, the work they do to help us as a team, defending and attacking, it’s important. Sometimes they have opportunities and don’t score, but it’s not only the fault of them, we need to create opportunities and chances, play a good game to score and Raul scored and it’s very good for us. I hope he continues to score and help the team like he does, scoring or not.”
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On changing to Lage’s style
“Of course, it’s different, every single manager has a new mentality, a new philosophy, a new strategy. Bruno brings other things for the team and I think all the people already saw how we play, how we want to play, doing our job, pressing the other team, not making mistakes, keeping the ball and creating opportunities. I think we are improving and will do our best to win the games, we won the last one and we’re going to try to win this one.”
On the team spirit in place
“We have an amazing group and that’s why we’ve done a good job for four, five years. We try to share every moment in the training ground or outside, because we know it’s important, we’ll know us better and what you put in a game isn’t only what you put in training. It’s a group wanting to win games and do our job.”
On still feeling young
“I feel happy, enjoying the football, how I’m enjoying now, and this is the most important. It doesn’t matter the age, for me it’s just a number, I try to continue to do my best to help the team. For me, if I know I can’t do this anymore, maybe it’s the time stop, but it’s not the case. I feel good, I feel 100 per cent focused to help the team and this is the most important.”
On adapting his game
“I think every year we adapt to improve our game. We need to be smarter in games, intelligent to do some things. Less runs maybe, less sprints, but in my position, I don’t need to do a lot of sprints. People say we lost some things with age, but I don’t see it like that, you can lose, but gain a lot.
“I gain more with age than I lose, and this is important because I can read the game better, I can position better to recover the ball, or to do a better pass or run less. It doesn’t matter the age, we need to improve every year to be better.”
On his aspirations this season
“Of course, all the players want to play in European competitions, but we think all the time, game by game. It doesn’t matter what we’re going to achieve in the future, what matters is what we can achieve now, in the next game. That’s what we’re going to try to do in every session, every week, do our best to improve and we can beat any team that comes. The next one is a tough game against Newcastle, but we’re going to try to win and put our game on the pitch and do our best.”
