Top-four hopefuls Aston Villa make the short journey to Molineux to lock horns with relegation-threatened Wolverhampton Wanderers in Saturday’s Premier League West Midlands derby.
The two teams meet for the first time since the end of September last year when Unai Emery‘s men claimed a 3-1 victory at Villa Park.
Since beating Manchester United 2-0 at Molineux on Boxing Day last year, Wolves have picked up just one point across their last five Premier League games, with a 2-2 draw at Tottenham Hotspur followed by four straight defeats by an aggregate score of 10-1.
It is worth noting that the Old Gold were beaten by Nottingham Forest, Newcastle United, Chelsea and Arsenal during this run, losing 1-0 at home to the latter last weekend in a contest that saw a player from both teams sent off – Joao Gomes was dismissed just four minutes before Riccardo Calafiori scored the decisive goal.
Vitor Pereira felt that his team “lost a big chance to win” against a Gunners side down to 10 men for the entire second half, and Wolves – who have now lost 15 Premier League matches this term – have slipped back into the relegation zone following Leicester City’s surprise win at Tottenham, albeit only one point adrift of safety with 15 games still remaining to avoid the drop.
The Old Gold have already lost five successive Premier League games this season under former boss Gary O’Neil and they will endeavour to avoid another five-match losing streak when they play host to Aston Villa this weekend; the only PL team to ever lose five times in a row on multiple occasions under different managers and still avoid relegation are West Ham United in 2006-07 (Alan Pardew and Ala Curbi0shley).