Saturday’s Premier League action kicks off at Molineux as Wolverhampton Wanderers and Liverpool lock horns in a lopsided encounter.
The international break has come at the best possible moment for Wolves manager Gary O’Neil after a 3-2 loss to Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park condemned his side to a third defeat in four league matches.
Wolves’ only league triumph this season has come away from home as Sasa Kalajdzic netted a late goal to topple Everton 1-0 at Goodison Park on matchday three.
But their only top-flight home outing in 2023/24 witnessed a dreadful 4-1 loss to Brighton & Hove Albion on day three, though they dismantled lower-league Blackpool 5-0 in League Cup action last time out.
O’Neil’s men cannot realistically expect to maul high-flying Liverpool, but another disappointing result could compromise our Wolves 2023/24 season predictions.
While backing the Midlands outfit for a 15th-place finish could prove too optimistic, our Liverpool season expectations look promising, with the Reds making a solid case for a top-four finish from the get-go.
Since a 1-1 draw at Chelsea on the opening weekend, Jurgen Klopp’s side have hit the ground running, racking up a three-game winning Premier League streak, bookended by a 3-0 humbling of Aston Villa.
Klopp will hope September’s international break won’t knock his men off their perch as the Merseyside heavyweights seem on course to make amends for last season’s underwhelming fifth-place finish.
Match Preview
Before netting two second-half goals against Palace, Wolves had scored just twice in their opening three Premier League games, showing the same weakness that has been tormenting them for years.
A lack of prolificacy has seen them fail to hit a 40-goal milestone in any of their last three top-flight campaigns, and hosting Liverpool will unlikely help them defy their woeful scoring record.
Wolves stunned the Reds 3-0 in this corresponding fixture last term, halting a dismal run of six consecutive home league defeats against the Anfield side, five of which had come ‘to nil.’
However, there’s a good chance they can give Klopp’s sterling attack a run for their money, having kept four clean sheets in their last six Premier League outings at Molineux.
After celebrating his 300th game in charge of Liverpool with a stylish victory over Villa, Klopp will be looking to build on his formidable top-flight record against Wolverhampton.
Except for the aforementioned fiasco in the Midlands last season, the German managed has won his remaining nine Premier League clashes against Wolves, overseeing seven clean sheets in that sequence.
Villa failed to test the Reds’ defensive resilience at Anfield last time out, helping Liverpool record their first league shutout since a 3-0 thumping of Leicester City in mid-May.
It’s worth noting that barring that scintillating win at the King Power Stadium, the visitors have conceded at least once on five of their last six league travels.
Team News
This game will come too soon for Joseph Hodge, but the rest of Wolverhampton’s squad is fit and ready for this mammoth task.
As for Liverpool, Virgil van Dijk is still out due to a red-card suspension, while there are question marks hovering over the heads of Ibrahima Konate and Trent Alexander-Arnold.
But with South American stars Alexis Mac Allister and Luis Diaz returning late from their international duties, Klopp may need to reshuffle the deck.
Wolverhampton Wanderers potential starting line-up:
(4-3-1-2): Jose Sa; Nelson Semedo, Craig Dawson, Max Kilman, Hugo Bueno; Pablo Sarabia, Mario Lemina, Joao Gomes, Pedro Neto; Sasa Kalajdzic, Fabio Silva.
Liverpool potential starting line-up:
(4-3-3): Alisson; Trent Alexander-Arnold, Joel Matip, Joe Gomez, Andy Robertson; Dominik Szoboszlai, Wataru Endo, Curtis Jones; Mohamed Salah, Cody Gakpo, Diogo Jota.
We Say: Wolverhampton Wanderers 0-2 Liverpool
A quick peek into the history books shows Wolves’ home win over Liverpool last season was just a fluke.
We expect the Reds to back our statement with a routine triumph.
