Ahead of a Premier League fixture with Liverpool at Molineux on Monday evening, the Wolves midfielder, who is Portugal’s second most capped player, may be entering the twilight years of his career, but insists he is still aiming to win something with the club, as he has done at every stage of his illustrious career.
On being the senior member of the Wolves squad
“In age I might be the oldest, but not in appearance! I just try to do my best, to rest, to eat well, to do good things for the next day and prepare for the training, and then do my best in training so I can be prepared for the game.
“At a young age, you can recover in maybe hours or one day after, but you still need to do all you can to be physically and mentally good for training and the games.
“It’s not a secret, but it’s my secret.”
Joao Moutinho 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 loved winning today...
— Wolves (@Wolves) March 11, 2021
🎾⚽️ pic.twitter.com/EOcBWjG3oe
On hosting Liverpool at Molineux
“I think there’s never a good time to play against one very good team like Liverpool. We know their results in the Premier League have not been so good, but they have amazing player, an amazing coach, an amazing structure and that’s what we know.
“We can’t go looking for their results in the Premier League, we need to look at what they can do and the amazing things that they’ve already done, and they will be wanting to change the results they have.
“In the Champions League, they already won, and they will want to continue that. We know if we do what we can, we have the possibility to win, but of course we know it’s a very tough game against very tough players who want to show that when they have time, they have the quality that they already showed to win the Premier League and the Champions League.
“That’s what we’ve got to expect, they will be playing like those other results never happened.”
On the aims for this season
“We want to be consistent. We know sometimes we can’t or we lose, sometimes we don’t have the luck, but we know we have to do more.
“Every game, whether we’ve won or we’ve lost, we know there are better things that we can do, whether in the next training session or the next game.
“That’s with this spirit that we’ve built on the training ground. We want to improve, to be better day after day and try to win the games on the weekend, or whoever comes next. That’s the most important.
“What we expect is to be consistent, to try to do good results every game, but we know that in football, that is not always possible, but we have to try 100 per cent.”
On adding to his trophy cabinet with Wolves
“It’s true, whichever club I have been at, I have won something. For me being realistic, it’s my goal to win something for Wolves.
“We have the capacity, we have the players, we have the club to win something. Of course, we know the league is going to be very difficult because other clubs invest a lot of money and they already have very good players.
“But we never know. At this stage of the season we only play for the league because we don’t have the cup, but any title would be good for us, it doesn’t matter if it’s a cup. I try to do my best to win something.
“The last few years it hasn’t been possible, this season it hasn’t been possible too, but we’re going to try to win something for Wolves because the fans, the club and we as players deserve something because of how we work, so we’re going to try.
“I might take one, two, three or four years – I don’t know if I’ll still be here then, but I’m going to support it.”
