Wolves have been dealt a big injury blow ahead of the start of their upcoming Premier League campaign.

What's the news?

In a recent post on Twitter in which he shared a corresponding article for The Telegraph, John Percy had this to say on the matter: "#Wolves pre-season preparations suffer a blow as Raul Jimenez ruled out for at least a month of new season. Could be up to 8 weeks after a knee injury against Besiktas, potentially ruling Jimenez out of opening 8 PL games #wwfc"

Bearing in mind how only three other Wolves players made more league appearances than the Mexican last season, it's safe to say that he is an important figure in Bruno Lage's side and will be a miss for them while he's out.

In fact, with six goals and four assists to his name, Jimenez ended the campaign with more goal contributions than any other player at Molineux.

Terrible news for Lage

To further highlight his attacking presence, the 31-year-old racked up more shots at goal last season (57) than any other player at Wolves and also had the highest rate for expected goals in the squad (6.6).

This shows that Lage's team are pretty reliant on Jimenez and his attacking prowess at the top of the pitch, and why it will be difficult for them if he were to miss the opening eight league games of the season.

If that were to happen, Wolves will have to play against Leeds United, Fulham, Tottenham Hotspur, Newcastle United, Bournemouth, Southampton, Liverpool and Manchester City without their main striker.

Having recently seen Fabio Silva join Anderlecht on a season-long loan deal, this makes Lage's options for the centre-forward position look rather slim.

Taking all this into account, it's safe to say that to potentially go through the first eight weeks of the upcoming season without Jimenez leading the line will surely be a massive blow for Wolves and give Lage a real headache.

In addition to hoping that the player can recover quicker than expected, it will be interesting to see if the club are able to bring in a new striker before the season starts to help ease the impact of Jimenez's absence.

AND in other news: Bruno Lage can save Wolves millions with "unplayable" £46k-p/w talent, he's "perfect"