Wolves vs Aston Villa Prediction

We look ahead to Saturday’s late kick-off in the Premier League with our Wolves vs Aston Villa prediction and preview. Who will come out on top in this West Midlands derby?

Wolves vs Aston Villa Stats: The Key Insights

• The Opta supercomputer makes Aston Villa (47.9%) favourites against struggling Wolverhampton Wanderers at Molineux.
• Wolves have conceded 52 goals in 23 league games this term, with their average of 2.26 per match their worst in any league season since 1932-33 (2.29).
• Villa won the reverse fixture 3-1 at Villa Park, but have not done the league double over Wolves since 2003-04.

A return of seven points from their first three games under Vítor Pereira had many tipping Wolves to pull clear of the Premier League’s relegation battle, but a run of four defeats to start 2025 has them back inside the bottom three ahead of Saturday’s West Midlands derby against Aston Villa.

Wolves have only started a calendar year with four consecutive defeats on two previous occasions, in 1906 and 1982. In both instances, they went on to be relegated.

They have already lost five straight Premier League games once this season, under Gary O’Neil. The only team to have runs of five consecutive defeats under different managers in a season and survive relegation was West Ham in 2006-07 (Alan Pardew and Alan Curbishley).

A controversial sending off for Myles Lewis-Skelly boosted their hopes of a shock win over Arsenal last weekend, but the momentum shifted when João Gomes also saw red and Riccardo Calafiori struck to win it for the Gunners.

Things got worse for Wolves one day later, as Leicester City halted their seven-game losing streak with a 2-1 win over Tottenham to leapfrog them in the table. While Southampton (99.9%), Leicester (81.7%) and Ipswich Town (74.9%) remain the supercomputer’s three favourites for relegation, Wolves’ chances of the drop increased from 31.8% to 40.6%.

If Wolves are to escape the drop, they simply must improve defensively. They have conceded 52 goals in 23 league games this term, with their average of 2.26 per match their worst in any league season since 1932-33 (96 in 42 games, 2.29). They did narrowly avoid relegation from the First Division that season, though.

Emmanuel Agbadou has at least added some physicality since arriving from Lens, winning more duels than any other Premier League player on Matchday 22 (18), including seven of the nine he contested in the air.

Pereira will hope his new recruit can help solve Wolves’ set-piece problems. They have already conceded 19 set-piece goals (excluding penalties) this term. The earliest point at which any team has shipped 20 such goals in a single Premier League campaign is Tottenham’s 25 games in 2007-08.

At the other end, Jørgen Strand Larsen limped out of last week’s defeat with a hamstring issue and is doubtful for Saturday. Only Matheus Cunha (10 goals, 4 assists) has more goals or total goal involvements than Larsen (7 goals, 2 assists) for Wolves this term.

Replicating the Norwegian’s movement may prove a challenge for the hosts, who could introduce Hwang Hee-chan or move Cunha into a central role. Only Tottenham’s Dominic Solanke (237) has made more runs into the opposition penalty area in the Premier League this season than Larsen (210), with 80 of his runs targeted by a pass, the most of any player.

Villa, meanwhile, clinched automatic qualification for the last 16 of the UEFA Champions League on Wednesday, with Morgan Rogers scoring a hat-trick in their thrilling 4-2 win over Celtic.

They were held to a 1-1 draw by West Ham in their last Premier League game, though, struggling after losing Tyrone Mings to a knee injury in the first half and being forced to deploy Lucas Digne as a makeshift centre-back. It didn’t look good for Mings at the time, but Unai Emery did suggest his injury was not as bad as first feared and he could even be in line to return for this game, having sat out the win over Celtic in midweek.

Emery will be hoping to fend off transfer interest in Ollie Watkins, who was reportedly the subject of a bid from Arsenal earlier this week. Against West Ham, Watkins became the second Villa player to be directly involved in 100 Premier League goals when he teed up Jacob Ramsey’s strike for his 39th assist in the competition (61 goals, also Gabriel Agbonlahor).

Watkins has been 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 three Villa players to achieve that feat, after Dwight Yorke (1995-96 to 1997-98) and Agbonlahor (2007-08 to 2009-10).

However, reports suggest Jhon Durán is on the verge of joining Al-Nassr in the Saudi Pro League, so the Colombian seems very unlikely to feature at Molineux. Durán is Villa’s top scorer this season with 12 goals from 29 games (7 starts).

Wolves vs Aston Villa Head-to-Head

Having lost three of their first four Premier League home games against Aston Villa (D1), Wolves have lost just one of their last five against them at Molineux, winning three and drawing one.

Villa, though, have a chance to record their first league double over Wolves since 2003-04, having won the return fixture 3-1 at Villa Park.

Under Emery, Villa are yet to lose a Premier League match against a side starting the day in the relegation zone (W13 D5).

Overall, Emery has lost just one of 29 games against sides placed 18th, 19th or 20th, losing 3-2 to Southampton as Arsenal boss in December 2018.

Wolves vs Aston Villa Prediction

The Opta supercomputer makes Villa favourites for this one, with the visitors triumphing in 47.9% of our pre-match simulations.

That does leave Wolves with more than a 50% of earning something, with their hopes of a win deemed to be 27.9% and 24.2% of simulations ending level.

While Wolves are backed to narrowly avoid the drop in the supercomputer’s season predictions, Villa are outsiders for another top-four finish, achieving that feat in 4.1% of scenarios with eighth (26.6%) their most likely position.

Wolves vs Aston Villa Predicted Lineups

Opta Power Rankings

The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system. They assign an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams. This score is 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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