Wolves vs Aston Villa Odds
| Wolves Odds | +250 |
| Aston Villa Odds | +110 |
| Draw | +240 |
| Over / Under | 2.5 -143 / +110 |
Wolves pulled off one of the biggest upsets of the league season last week as they beat Man City 2-1. Two weeks after a disappointing away draw to one of the league's worst teams, Luton Town, Gary O'Neil's side took down the Premier League and European champions. Now, they'll match up with their closest rival in the West Midlands Derby as Aston Villa visits the Molineux on Sunday.
Aston Villa also had their biggest win of the season last week at home against Brighton. The Villans have had a ton of extreme results in the new year, including dominant wins against Burnley and Brighton surrounded by blowout defeats to Newcastle and Liverpool away from home. They have a distinct playing style under Unai Emery and while their attacking output has improved this season per match, the defensive numbers have also fallen off a bit and that makes them vulnerable in transition against this Wolves attack.
Here is my Wolves vs Aston Villa preview.
Wolves
Wolves finished last season under Bruno Lage and Julen Lopategui as the worst attacking outfit in the Premier League. Through new tactics and a healthy Pedro Neto, the Wolves attack is now back to just generally mediocre. Thus far in 2023-24, Wolves are 13th in NPxG per match with the seventh-best set piece efficiency, 10th-most big scoring chances and sixth-most crosses into the box.
Neto has been the key difference maker. He carried the Wolves attack in 2021 pre-injury and is back to those levels again this season. He's elite at progressive carrying, receiving progressive passes and he has produced 0.46 xG + xA per 90 thus far this year.
There's no other standout attacker at the club, but the combination of Matheus Cunha and Hwang Hee-Chan is producing just enough shots per 90 to hold up as a mediocre unit overall. It's not that Wolves are blowing teams away with their field tilt or shot dominance, but they now have a very real quick strike group.
Villa will let Wolves have a good amount of the ball in this match, and the key will be whether or not someone can play that pass to spring Neto in behind. If he gets good service, Wolves will create a ton on the break here.
Aston Villa
Aston Villa have allowed the third-fewest shots in the Premier League this season, but they're allowing a ton of high quality chances and banking on Emiliano Martinez to bail them out a bunch in 1-on-1 situations. Martinez has a +1.2 post-shot expected goal rating through the six matches that he's played, and that's despite conceding the third most big scoring chances in the entire league as a team.
Despite playing a really high defensive line and condensing the space between the lines, Villa aren't really forcing a ton of high turnovers and looking to quickly attack off of them. Villa are allowing the highest pass completion rate in the entire league. It's a bizarre defensive profile because some teams have been able to easily pick apart the defense because they give you time and space on the ball to play in behind.
If you have an outlet good enough to time his run, stay onside and then be dangerous attacking into space, you can really expose this Villa defense that ranks 13th overall in non-penalty expected goals allowed this season.
Wolves vs Aston Villa
Pick & Prediction
If you schedule adjust Aston Villa's numbers, the defense is considerably worse than last season. They've won three straight matches in the league, but conceded at least 0.6 xGA in all three matches in the first half alone. Brighton and Chelsea were able to generate good opportunities to score even though they didn't finish them.
It's a good spot to play against Villa as they have a short turnaround from their Europa League match on Thursday. The club isn't used to playing multiple matches per week and Wolves are super underrated in this underdog role now that O'Neil has changed the counterattacking tactics.
