Leeds

Our home form between now and the end of the season needs to carry us to safety.

Leeds, Chelsea, Brentford, Palace, Villa and Everton will all present tough challenges and I’m sure some of them will beat us, but there’s no reason Wolves can’t get a good share of the points.

It’s a weird season and we do have a habit of being the victim of high points requirements, but somewhere between 38-40 should be enough.

Despite the loss last weekend, we’ve managed 17 points from our last 11 matches. Repeat that for the final 11 and we won’t have anything to worry about. Easy, right?

Leeds

I thought Leeds were wrong to sack Jessie Marsch. Only because they seemed to have invested heavily in players to deploy his preferred high-energy style.

The results weren’t there to support him continuing but I thought he’d eventually do enough to move them away from safety.

Javi Gracia is a capable pair of hands, as we know from his time at Watford, but it did seem like they ended up picking the only manager that was readily available and up for taking on the job.

He’s overseen a crucial win over Southampton, a decent draw against Brighton and a loss to Chelsea so far. Not too shabby but they remain in the bottom three.

They’re away at Arsenal after the international break so will be desperate for a result tomorrow, but there are some favourable fixtures to come in April. I’d rate them at exactly 50/50 to survive.

Midfielder Tyler Adams has been ruled out for a few weeks with a thigh injury and he’ll be a miss for them.

Wolves

One of the big plusses for me in the Newcastle game was Pedro Neto looking sharp in his 45 minutes. That was a big improvement from the rusty performance we saw against Spurs.

Hwang is back too and Lopetegui has consistently used him when available so it wouldn’t surprise me if he started tomorrow, particularly after scoring on his return.

I don’t know how long Pablo Sarabia is out, but there are still plenty of other configurations for the head coach to ponder in attack with Traore, Podence and Cunha also part of the conversation.

The midfield is another conundrum with Matheus Nunes dropped at St. James’ Park. Do we put him back in and hope for the performance we’ve expected all season or go with someone steadier? I don’t know the answer.

It’s good to have this squad and keep the opposition guessing. I’d prefer a settled team playing consistently well, but this is better than losing with a threadbare group.

Predictions

Well done to Steppenwolfe, BigNachos, AussieWolf, Matt Cook and wishfart who all correctly predicted the score against Newcastle.

Rich remains four-points clear at the top of the overall table at the end of Gameweek 27. It’s worth having a go at Brownlow Medal betting to turn that knowledge into money.

As always, if you’d like to join in with the Prediction League this season, it’s simple – just leave your prediction in the comment section below using the boxes provided. Then repeat for every preview article throughout the season, making sure you always use the same email address to make your prediction. Your email is what ties you to your overall score.

You can read my prediction for the game in the comment section below.

Up The Wolves!

I won’t labour the point about our squad because you all know the story.

Bruno Lage certainly does. The Premier League now allows five substitutions and he only made one today, underlining just how chronic the situation has become.

Even with Jimenez, Traore, Semedo and now Moutinho, we’d still be several bodies short but those players were badly missed as Wolves competed well but fell short against an average, injury-hit Leeds.

A brilliant opening goal that saw all those promising pre-season elements come together was soon forgotten as white shirts pressed us into submission and levelled things up.

Time and again we gave the ball away in our own defensive third, with the full backs particularly culpable. It was Ait-Nouri at fault for the equaliser but Jonny was just as guilty at times on the opposite side.

Sa should have kept out the near post shot and he wobbled in the first half, which didn’t help our jittery defence and the wider team establish any sort of pattern of play.

Still, we should have gone in ahead with Dendoncker squandering a one-on-one just before the whistle.

The big Belgian also saw a powerful header saved after the break as he again was the focal point of most of our attacking moves.

And therein lies a massive problem. We cannot be relying on him to be our go-to finisher if we’re serious about doing anything this season. He’s excellent at making the runs and credit to him for that, but has a consistently terrible conversion rate.

Podence, Gibbs-White and particularly Neto were all easy on the eye as Wolves dominated a good half an hour of the second half but there was nothing on the end of it. Every time it’s individual brilliance or bust and that’s not a recipe for success.

If you want to take a positive it would be Pedro Neto. He gave Leeds a torrid time throughout and was unlucky his tenacity didn’t produce greater returns.

The team also looked comfortable in their shape for a long part of that second half allowing that attacking trio to ask questions, even though a second goal failed to materialise.

Most disappointing would be how little Leeds had to do to win the game, scoring with their only real attack of the second half and seeing it out comfortably from there with Bruno powerless to make any decisive moves.

If there’s no activity off the pitch again this week then the pressure already feels high for next weekend’s Molineux opener.

You can only put 11 players on the pitch and as it stands, Wolves should have 11 good ones.

Beyond that, things aren’t great.

With only one significant addition, several departures and still more talk about key personnel leaving than new talent arriving, it’s been a summer of frustration.

I suppose all we can do is go a game at a time, hope the team performs and doesn’t suffer further injuries.

We’ve got an easy start apparently, but a trip to Elland Road on opening day feels anything but straightforward.

Leeds

On the one hand, Leeds stayed up by the skin of their teeth and have sold their two best players so could be considered relegation candidates again.

But all that money has been re-invested into the team and delivered five first-team additions to bolster a squad that was creaking last season.

They do have short-term injury problems again with Cooper, Ayling, Foreshaw and Firpo all likely to miss Saturday’s game along with Stuart Dallas who is out for longer.

Patrick Bamford is fit again though and scored twice in their most recent pre-season victory. His continued form and fitness will again be pivotal to their prospects.

Question marks remain over Jesse Marsch and their summer rebuild so it does feel like they arrive at the starting gate as one of the real unknown quantities of the Premier League. As always with Leeds, it promises to be anything but boring.

Wolves

Despite everything going on (or not going on) off the pitch, the team have performed well on it throughout pre-season.

The above XI represents what I expect to see and honestly, what else is there to do? With Raul and Traore both out and Hwang still getting up to speed, senior options are limited in forward positions.

At the back we’ve got a few more bodies but it seems like that four is set in stone unless we pick up last-minute injuries. I certainly hope Conor Coady doesn’t leave (on loan or otherwise) as we need his presence in the dressing room, if not always on the pitch.

Predictions

As always, if you’d like to join in with the Prediction League this season, it’s simple – just leave your prediction in the comment section below using the boxes provided. Then repeat for every preview article throughout the season, making sure you always use the same email address to make your prediction. Your email is what ties you to your overall score.

You can read my prediction for the game in the comment section below.

Up The Wolves!

I’m loathe to make the main talking point about the referee but what else are you supposed to do?

After being subjected to such woefully biased and unfit officiating I don’t blame those banding about the accusations of corruption.

How can Kevin Friend seriously think Raul’s challenge on Meslier was a bookable offence? It was a 50/50 challenge that both players had every right to go for, which resulted in an inevitable collision.

It seemed to me that Friend was desperate for Leeds to go unpunished with numerous first-half fouls, he then wanted to create a major talking point with Raul’s sending off, and the cherry on the cake was giving as much as possible to Leeds for the rest of the game.

And to see all their subs run across the pitch as the winner went in was frankly despicable. A night of chaos was always on the cards when you have a referee that is unable or unwilling to control a game of football. No wonder none of our refs are no longer fancied much by UEFA or FIFA.

I’m not excusing the woeful defending for all three goals – we rather lost our heads. And I’m normally the first one to call out the lads, but I actually don’t blame them for having their minds scrambled by a ref who was hell-bent on manipulating the outcome.

It was a mad-cap 106 minutes and I’m struggling to make sense of the actual intricacies of the match.

All I can say is that I thought Wolves followed the blueprint of the Watford performance in the first-half by starting off with plenty of intensity and that meant the chances and goals followed. To do so when proceedings were so stop-start and we lost Neves to injury made it even more impressive.

I’m just gutted, truly gutted. The three points were wrapped up until the sending off. 4 or 5-0 was on the cards.

Seventh and a Europa Conference League spot isn’t out of reach but tonight will take some getting over for all of us.