Wolves Captain Nelson Semedo has the trust of “200%” that his team will be released from the Premier League relegation zone, while they are preparing to organize Rivals Aston Villa on Saturday.
After last week's 1-0 loss for Arsenal, Wolves had four consecutive Premier League defeats after starting Vorror Pereira's regime with seven points from three games.
They have already lost five consecutive Premier League matches this season, under Gary O'Neil.
The only team that had five consecutive defeats among different managers in a season and survived relegation was West Ham in 2006-07 (Alan Pardew and Alan Curbishley).
In the meantime, wolves have been relegated from the top flight in both previous cases in which they started a calendar year with four consecutive losses, in 1906 and 1982.
With Villa, Liverpool and Bournemouth the following for Wolves, degradation -fears are increasing, but Semedo is sure that they will get out of trouble.
“My conviction in this group is 200%. I know that everyone works super hard to get out of this situation,” Semedo said the club's website.
“I know that the staff also works very hard and they have helped us a lot since the day they have arrived. I believe 100% in this team.
“I know we have a great team with great players. We have played against very good teams, it is true, but I am sure we will work hard and that we will do better.”
Saturday at home against Villa. pic.twitter.com/esszg9afkl
– Wolves (@Wolves) January 29, 2025
In the meantime, Villa achieved the automatic qualification for the last 16 of the Champions League with an exciting 4-2 victory over Celtic on Wednesday.
The side of Unai Emery is eighth in the Premier League, four points on drift of the top four. They will have faith in the victory, who have never lost a competition match against a team that starts the day in the relegation zone under the Spaniard (13 wins, five draws).
Morgan Rogers, who scored a hat trick in Europe on Wednesday, said: “We had to dig deep, we know we can do it, we do it every week in the Premier League.
“We deserve it thoroughly. We have the hunger and the drive and we have a manager who pushes us every day.”
Players to watch
Wolves – Emmanuel Aggbadou
Agbadou won more duels than any other Premier League player on competition day 22 (18), including seven of the nine he disputed in the air.
Wolves will hope that AGBADOU can help solve their set piece problems, because they have admitted this period of 19 set goals (excluding punishment).
The earliest point at which a team 20 sent in a single Premier League campaign is the 25 matches of Tottenham in 2007-08.
Aston Villa – Ollie Watkins
Last weekend Watkins became the second villa player who was directly involved in 100 Premier League goals when he brought Jacob Ramsey to West Ham, with his 39th assist in the competition (61 goals, Gabriel Agbonlaor also has 100).
Watkins, who was the subject of an Arsenal bid earlier this week, was involved in at least 15 goals in each of his last three Premier League campaigns (21 in 2022-23, 32 in 2023-24, 15 in 2024- 25).
He is one of the three villa players who achieved that performance, after Dwight Yorke (1995-96 to 1997-98) and Agbonlaor (2007-08 to 2009-10).
Match forecast – Aston Villa Win
After having lost three of their first four Premier League matches against Aston Villa (one draw), Wolves have now lost only one of their last five against them in Molineux, won three and one signed.
Villa, however, has the chance to take on their first competition-dolly about Wolves since 2003-04, after he won the return employee 3-1 in Villa Park.
In the Premier League, Emery has only lost one of the 29 games against parties on the 18th, 19th or 20th and lost 3-2 to Southampton as Arsenal boss in December 2018.
If wolves have to escape from the drop, they simply have to improve defensively.
They have admitted this period of 52 goals in 23 league matches, with their average of 2.26 per match their worst in each competition season since 1932-33 (96 in 42 games, 2.29). However, they avoided relegation of the first division that season.
Opta wins probability
Wolves – 28.2%
Aston Villa – 47.5%
Drawing – 24.3%
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