Wolves host Aston Villa as both aim to arrest their poor start to the season

When Wolves host Aston Villa, they will be hoping they can continue their upturn in form.

The host will want to look upwards rather than downwards following their Europa League fatigue at the start of the season.

Last time the two met was two matches ago as Villa knocked out their Premier League rivals. Anwar El Ghazi had scored the opener before Patrick Cutrone equalised. Ahmed Elmohamady did however scored the winner three minutes later with his side winning 2-1 while they dumped Wolves out.

Apart from the earlier mentioned loss to Villa, it has been an upwards trajectory for the hosts with them beating ŠK Slovan Bratislava (1-0 and 2-1) twice, they’ve also drawn with Arsenal, Newcastle and Southampton (1-1).

The Villans have lost to the top two teams in the Premier League as they hosted Liverpool (2-1) and went to the Etihad Stadium (3-0). Of course, they beat Wolves as well as beating Brighton (2-1) and Norwich (5-1) while also drawing with Burnley (2-2).

While Nuno Espirito Santo and Dean Smith have met in the aforementioned match they have faced off before with both coming in the 2017/2018 season. Both times it was when Wanderers met Brentford who Smith managed before, the first match ended in a 0-0 draw while the Bees won 3-0 at Molineux.

Wolves’ Santo knows his players are ready:

“We’re going to work and start thinking about Villa, it’s a big game, here at Molineux, a big derby. We are going to be ready for it.

“We’ve played them already this season – we know about it already. We are the same people, we know what it means.”

Villa boss Smith gave his opinion on Wolves:

“They’re very tough to beat, they’ve got great organisation and structure,” the Villa head coach said. “They’ve got players who can score goals having gone to Manchester City and won, gone to Arsenal and equalised to come away with a point… so they’ll feel they’re in a run of form.

“People look from the outside and think ‘is the amount of games they’re playing going to catch up with them?’ We’re hopeful that is does on Sunday.”

Head to Head-

Wolves Wins- 39

Draws- 32

Aston Villa Wins– 55

Team News

With Wily Boly (Ankle) out for Wolves, it could make space for Ryan Bennett to play in the league for the first time in almost a month, the defender came off the bench against Slovan Bratislava on Thursday night.

Morgan Gibbs-White’s fitness is a concern with the midfielder 50/50 on whether he’ll recover from his back problem for the derby.

Villa skipper Jack Grealish could miss his third match in a row (calf) though will be checked on the day to see if he can feature on Sunday. Frederic Guilbert picked up a dead leg but should make a full recovery and Jota has returned to training (hernia).