At A Glance
Aston Villa take a short trip to Molineux on Saturday to face Wolverhampton Wanderers in the Premier League’s early kick-off.
Dean Smith’s side have had extra time to prepare for the fixture following the postponement of their game against Newcastle, and they’re looking to bounce back after a 2-1 defeat to West Ham last time out.
That loss made it four defeats in the past five matches for Villa, who will look to lean on their strong away form after winning three of four league games on their travels this season.
Tenth place Wolves are two places and two points above the Villans heading into the fixture.
Nuno Espirito Santo’s team were thrashed 4-0 by Liverpool last weekend, continuing their inconsistent form this term.
Wolves have won five, drawn two and lost four of their top-flight matches thus far.
Standout Stats
Aston Villa have won three of their last four Premier League away games, though they did lose their last such match at West Ham (1-2). The Villans had won just three of their previous 40 on the road in the competition (D8 L29).
Following an unbeaten run of eight Premier League games, Aston Villa have now lost four of their last five in the competition (W1), conceding at least twice in each defeat.
Wolves have conceded 3+ goals in three of their 11 Premier League games so far this season, already more than they had in the whole of the 2019-20 campaign (2).
Aston Villa have scored in 12 of their last 13 Premier League games, netting 25 goals in total. They had failed to score in six of their last eight prior to this run, with their previous 25 league goals coming over a period of 27 games.
Wolves manager Nuno Espírito Santo has lost just two of his 16 home Premier League meetings with English managers (W9 D5), remaining unbeaten in his last nine such games since a 2-5 loss against Frank Lampard’s Chelsea last season.
Only Bruno Fernandes (35) and Kevin De Bruyne (28) have created more chances for their teammates this season than Aston Villa’s Jack Grealish (26). Meanwhile, among midfielders only Fernandes (11) has been involved in more goals than Grealish so far this term (10 – 5 goals, 5 assists).
The Last Meeting
There were only three shots on target when these two sides last met, with Wolves producing a piece of quality to win it in the second half.
In a cagey game, Jack Grealish came closest to scoring in the first half before Leander Dendoncker struck the knockout blow after 62 minutes.
The midfielder fired home from the edge of the box to leave Villa stuck in the bottom three ahead of their final six Premier League games.
Team News
Ross Barkley misses out on Saturday’s game, with Dean Smith targeting his return in the near future.
The Villa boss has no new injury concerns to contend with after Fred Guilbert, Bjorn Engels and Kortney Hause all returned to training.
Wolves talisman Raúl Jiménez will miss the game after fracturing his skull in a collision with David Luiz last month.
The only other absentee for the hosts is Jonny Otto, who had surgery on an ACL injury back in August.
The Boss
They’re one of the teams in the league that are tough to beat. You look at their last few seasons in this league and they’ve been the team that all promoted sides are trying to emulate. They’ve lost some big players with Jota going to Liverpool and Raul Jimenez with the unfortunate head injury. They’re still a very good team with some very good players. It’s always a concern that a team who very rarely gets beat by that margin will be smarting and looking forward to this game to put things right.
Dean Smith
