The Portuguese forward netted three times in Thursday night’s 4-0 win over RCD Espanyol, added to Ruben Neves’ thunderbolt, to give the old gold a hefty lead heading into the second leg. But despite the scoreline, Jota insists the tie is not over and the players will do everything they can next week to secure a place in the round of 16.
On a great European night at Molineux
“We bring back European nights for the fans and fortunately with a great result at home. Everyone in the end was happy and we are proud of this moment, but we just need to carry on.”
On back-to-back Europa hat-trick
“I’m very happy to score three goals again. Things happen naturally and I’ve been struggling a lot to score in the Premier League, but you can see that when small things change, different things appear.
“When we talk about the Premier League, we are talking about the best league in the world, the most competitive one, so we have to realise it’s not easy to score goals, to not concede as well in each game.
“I’m very happy to score today and help the team to the win. Of course, it’s always important mark in each career of each player, and the most important was to score four goals and don’t concede. That is very important in a tie like this. We just want to keep helping the team and keep working hard to win matches.
“I was talking to Ruben – he can stay with the better one, I scored more than him, so I’m still happy.”
On a coming together with Iturraspe
“Things like this happen and I have these kinds of reactions too. We are competitive players in the incidents, in the tackles, and things like this can happen.
“We fought for the ball, I didn’t understand his reaction, but I don’t think it was his intention to make an aggression. A red card is not up to me, but I think the ref did well.”
On taking a healthy advantage to Barcelona
“We are playing game by game and although we had a great result tonight, it’s not done yet. I think it’s a great result, four goals and a clean sheet, so it’s in our hands, but in football you never know.
“We have many examples of teams coming back, so we have to stay focused and complete the job next week in the second leg, and then we see.”
