Johnny Phillips: Joao Moutinho is still creating moments of football heaven

Short of taking it away for an all-inclusive weekend spa retreat in the Cotswolds, it’s hard to fathom how Moutinho could have cared for the ball any better than he did on Monday night.

There is nobody in the club’s history who has taken better care of the ball than the man supporters describe as ‘five foot seven of football heaven’.

Under his watch, the ball is treasured, guarded, caressed. It is moved effortlessly around the pitch as if to strict instruction.

Moutinho will never be taken for granted in the stands – there is very little unsaid about the maestro who has made the midfield, the whole team, click across their longest spell in the top division during the Premier League era.

Supporters will be forever thankful he chose Molineux as the stage for this Indian summer in such a successful career.

That initial disbelief that he somehow ended up here will never completely fade away.

In the 2018 transfer window, when Stoke City paid £5million for James McClean and Middlesbrough paid £5million for Paddy McNair, Fosun were able – with the help of a well-known agent – to secure Moutinho for the same fee.

If the Championship title win the previous season signalled a raising of the bar, Moutinho’s arrival took it up another notch.

We had never seen anyone like this in a Wolves shirt. Moutinho stole our hearts. And three-and-a-half years later he’s still at it.

On current form, he could pick his team in the Premier League and there would be a spot for him in it.

Although, back in August it was hard to imagine how the 35-year-old could have a season like this.

His resurgence after the travails of the latter part of 2020/21 has been a delight.

Moutinho and Ruben Neves would comfortably have walked into United’s central midfield on Monday night and disillusioned United supporters watching in despair would have loved such a scenario.

So dominant and so controlling was their influence that Scott McTominay and Nemanja Matic never got to grips with what was happening around them.

Both Wolves midfielders have stepped up, as have others, under Bruno Lage in the opening months of this campaign.

A sturdier defence behind them than the one which finished last season has helped provide protection, but Moutinho’s fitness and performance levels belie his years.

All this subsequent to his involvement in the European Championship, which effectively ruled out his summer break for the second successive season.

Throughout the golden decade of British athletics – the 1980s – the director of coaching was a man named Frank Dick, who guided Daley Thompson, Steve Ovett, Sebastian Coe and many others to the top.

There is an old clip, on YouTube, of him offering advice to youngsters starting out, those who were finishing last in their early races.

It is one that Fabio Silva could identify with: “Winning is being better today than you were yesterday. Every day.”

Silva’s hold-up play was key to the move which led to Moutinho’s goal against United.

After a difficult start to life at Wolves, all the teenager can do is aim to improve and who knows where that might take him.

In Moutinho, he has no better role model.

Silva was just two years old when Moutinho made his debut for Sporting Lisbon’s first team. Seventeen years later the pair helped topple United at Old Trafford.

Moutinho is the absolute embodiment of Dick’s words.

On Monday night, he spoke in his post-match interview about needing to improve.

“I need to shoot more,” he explained, as if there was genuinely something missing from his phenomenal game.

That said, he has been consistent in the quest for improvement since the day he arrived.

Speaking to Moutinho at the start of his first season here, in 2018, he said, “You need to be open to learn because if you think you know everything, you’re going to stop.”

Moutinho dedicated the match-winning goal at Old Trafford to his relatively new-born baby and his family, who have made Wolverhampton their home for the past three-and-a-half years.

Dave Harrison, who covered Wolves for this newspaper back in the 1980s and now works matchdays as a media attendant, told a nice story about the family who often pass through the Molineux entrance he is stationed at.

“The Moutinhos are lovely,” he recalled. “They came through with their daughter one day to go up to the executive box, she was about 11 or 12 years old. I asked where she preferred living, Monaco or Wolverhampton? She said, ‘Wolverhampton, there’s a lot more to do here’.”

Perhaps as important to supporters as being able to watch homegrown players flourish, is witnessing overseas stars embrace their surroundings.

Moutinho could never have imagined he would see out his career in Wolverhampton.

But what a shot in the arm for the club and the city it has been, that such a genius of the game is enjoying his stay so much.

It won’t last forever, and the day he no longer features in a Wolves team will be a desperately disappointing one.

Last Monday night Moutinho walked out at Old Trafford opposite the only footballer in his country who has been capped on more occasions. But by the end of the match there really was only one Portuguese legend worth talking about.

Please don’t take Moutinho away.