Aston Villa are predicted to continue their fine start to the Premier League season with a win. Here, we look ahead to the game with our Aston Villa vs Wolves prediction and preview.
Aston Villa vs Wolves Stats: The Key Insights
- The Opta supercomputer expects an Aston Villa victory, with the hosts winning a dominant 57.6% of pre-match simulations.
- Wolves have won just one of their last 14 Premier League games (D3 L10) and are winless in seven (D1 L6).
- Ollie Watkins has been involved in seven goals in his last six top-flight home matches for Villa.
Aston Villa will be filled with confidence heading into Saturday’s Premier League clash against rivals Wolves on the back of their convincing midweek UEFA Champions League triumph.
Unai Emery’s side had little trouble in their first game in Europe, brushing aside Young Boys with a 3-0 away victory as Youri Tielemans, Jacob Ramsey and Amadou Onana were all on target on Tuesday.
That victory made it three in a row in all competitions for Villa, who battled from two goals down to win 3-2 against Everton in their last league outing. Ollie Watkins’ brace inspired the turnaround before super sub Jhon Durán once again delivered at Villa Park.
Home is where the heart is for Watkins – the striker has been involved in seven goals in his last six Premier League games at Villa Park, scoring four and assisting three. Overall, he has 48 goal involvements at Villa Park (33 goals, 15 assists), second only to Gabriel Agbonlahor in the competition (49), though the England forward has stern competition from Durán up top.
Durán has scored the winning goal in all three of Villa’s league victories this season, with all three coming as a substitute. That run could end here, though, as no player has scored four winning goals from the bench in a single campaign in Premier League history.
The most eye-catching of Durán’s winners came against Everton, rocketing home from 30 yards out with a left-footed missile, which may concern Wolves. They have conceded a league-high three Premier League goals from outside the box this season, including both strikes in their 2-1 defeat to Newcastle United last time out.
Mario Lemina opened the scoring for Wolves at Molineux before Fabian Schär and Harvey Barnes made the hosts pay from range. Gary O’Neil’s side remain winless in the league this term, and fell to a 3-2 defeat in Wednesday’s EFL Cup third-round clash against Brighton to compound their misery.
Indeed, Wolves have lost more games than any other Premier League side (11) since the start of March. They’ve also won fewer games (2) and earned fewer points (9) than any other ever-present top-flight team in that time.
Coupled with winning just one of their last 14 Premier League games (D3 L10) and going winless in seven (D1 L6) since a 2-1 win over Luton Town in April, the problems appear alarming for O’Neil.
Saturday’s visitors are on their longest run without a victory since a streak of 12 between April and August 2022, and it is hard to imagine them transforming their fortunes against Emery’s well-drilled hosts.
Villa have won three of their four Premier League games this season, losing the other 2-0 against Arsenal. They will now aim to win as many as four of their first five games in the competition, only previously doing so in 1998-99, 2009-10 and 2020-21.
Aston Villa vs Wolves Head-to-Head
It is not all bad news for O’Neil’s men, however. Wolves have only lost one of their last five away league games against Aston Villa (D2 L2).
That defeat did come in this exact fixture last term, though, as Moussa Diaby and Ezri Konsa were on target at Villa Park.
Villa have only ever managed back-to-back Premier League victories at home against Wolves in their first two such encounters in 2003-04.
Aston Villa vs Wolves Prediction
The Opta supercomputer struggled to see anything other than a home win here, with Villa triumphing in a convincing 57.6% of 10,000 pre-match simulations.
Wolves’ best hope may be a draw, with that result forecast in 21.4% of data-led sims, just ahead of the away victory in 21% of scenarios.
Villa’s top-four chances have also jumped to 16% in Opta’s end-of-season predictions after a decent start to the campaign, while Wolves finish 17th – one above their current position – most often, in 16.5% of simulations.
Aston Villa vs Wolves Predicted Lineups
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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