We look ahead to Sunday’s Premier League game at Molineux with our Wolves vs Chelsea prediction and preview. Enzo Maresca will take charge of his first Premier League away match and will be looking to bounce back from defeat on the opening weekend.
Wolves vs Chelsea Stats: The Key Insights
- The Opta supercomputer is backing Enzo Maresca to pick up his first three points as Chelsea head coach, with the Blues winning 52.6% of pre-match simulations.
- Wolves didn’t name a single English player in their starting XI on Matchday 1 against Arsenal, the first time they’ve done so in a Premier League game.
- Enzo Fernández led all Chelsea players for shots (three) and touches in the opposition box (seven) in their 2-0 opening day defeat to Man City. In only one of his previous 46 Premier League games had he managed seven touches in the opposition box, doing so in January against Fulham.
Chelsea travel to the west Midlands to take on Wolves on Sunday looking to give new head coach Enzo Maresca a win in his second Premier League game in charge.
It’s certainly been a chaotic start to Maresca’s tenure after joining from Leicester City. After a troubled pre-season, Chelsea were beaten 2-0 at home by reigning champions Manchester City on the opening weekend.
Much has been made of the size of Chelsea’s squad, and though Maresca tried to downplay such concerns this week by saying over 15 players are training away from the first team, defeat in his second game will only lead to more questions.
Chelsea handed four Premier League club debuts to players against City (Marc Guiu, Renato Veiga, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, Pedro Neto), taking their total to 23 debuts since the start of last season, five more than any other club who haven’t been promoted in that time.
Experienced players such as Raheem Sterling and Ben Chilwell look set to leave Stamford Bridge, and defeat this weekend at Molineux would be the first time since the 1973-74 campaign that Chelsea have lost their opening two matches of a season.
Maresca, meanwhile, would become the first Chelsea boss to lose his first two matches in charge since Gianluca Vialli in 1998.
However, hope will come in the form of Wolves’ opening weekend defeat at Arsenal, losing 2-0 after goals from Kai Havertz and Bukayo Saka.
It was a continuation of Wolves’ poor end to last term under Gary O’Neil, in which they lost their last three games. They’ve only lost more in a row once before: a six-game run between May and August 2021 (three with Nuno Espírito Santo, three with Bruno Lage), while the last Wolves manager to lose five in a row was Terry Connor in March and April 2012 (seven).
Wolves themselves haven’t had an easy transfer window, with key players such as Neto and Max Kilman departing the club for big money. There are also reports in the media that O’Neil is limited in what he is able to spend on incomings from those sales.
Further encouragement for Chelsea will stem from their hosts’ poor record at home in 2024, with Wolves losing six of their nine Premier League home games so far this calendar year.
No side has lost more in what is a stark comparison to 2023, where Wolves lost just four of their 20 league games at Molineux.
Chelsea, though, have conceded at least once in each of their last 16 Premier League away games, their longest run without a clean sheet on the road since a run of 24 between January 1993 and February 1994.
They also recorded their first victory of the season on Thursday when a Christopher Nkunku penalty and another goal from Noni Madueke gave Chelsea a 2-0 win over Swiss side Servette in their UEFA Conference League play-off first leg at Stamford Bridge.
In terms of team news, Chelsea will be without Reece James until at least September, while Wolves will again miss Nelson Semedo through a continued suspension from the final day of last season.
Wolves vs Chelsea Head-to-Head
Wolves have won their last three Premier League games against Chelsea, as many as they had in their previous 17 (four draws, 10 defeats). Only once before have they won more consecutive league games against the Blues, a run of five between November 1938 and September 1947.
Chelsea are also winless in four away league games against Wolves (one draw, three losses), since a 5-2 victory in September 2019 under Frank Lampard. The last meeting between the sides came back in February, when a Matheus Cunha hat-trick and an Axel Disasi own-goal helped Wolves to a 4-2 victory at Stamford Bridge.
Wolves vs Chelsea Prediction
Despite the apparent chaos, the Opta supercomputer still has Chelsea as clear favourites to win at Molineux, with Maresca’s side triumphing in over half (52.6%) of 10,000 pre-match simulations.
Wolves, meanwhile, are given a 24.0% chance of taking the victory themselves to pick up their first points of the season. The probability of a first draw between the sides since 2022 stands at 23.4%.
After the opening weekend, Chelsea are still predicted to finish in the European places which would be some achievement in Maresca’s first season. They end the campaign in the top four in 22.1% of simulations. Wolves are expected to narrowly avoid relegation, with 16th their most probable finish, going down in 21.7% of the supercomputer’s simulations.
Wolves vs Chelsea Predicted Lineups
Wolves: José Sá, Rayan Aït-Nouri, Toti Gomes, Yerson Mosquera, Matt Doherty, João Gomes, Mario Lemina, Hwang Hee-chan, Matheus Cunha, Rodrigo Gomes, Jørgen Strand Larsen
Chelsea: Robert Sánchez, Marc Cucurella, Wesley Fofana, Levi Colwill, Malo Gusto, Moisés Caicedo, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, Christopher Nkunku, Enzo Fernández, Cole Palmer, Nicolas Jackson
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system that assigns an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off this weekend, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides:
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