Wolves have the best defensive record in the Premier League at the time of writing. Wolves have the joint-worst attacking record.
Wolves have avoided defeat in 66% of their games so far this term. Wolves have won just one of their games so far this term.
The start that we have made to the 2022/23 season is riddled with contradictions and confusion, with the stats making it difficult to decipher whether Wolves have kicked on this term, regressed or stayed pretty much as they were.
Of course, we perhaps shouldn’t be too surprised given that such conservatism was the watchword for Bruno Lage last season as well, but it’s hard to be optimistic when your game plan is built around trying to keep things tight defensively while hoping for the best in the attack.
The football odds are telling in that regard, too. Wolves are currently priced at 10/3 to finish inside the Premier League’s top-ten and 7/2 to suffer relegation. In short, even the bookmakers don’t have a clue what to expect from the Old Gold this term.
Reading the various football predictions columns prior to the start of the season, you would find a similar lack of clarity, with anything from a flirtation with the Europa League places to an abject relegation battle predicted by the experts.
Work continues at Compton. ? pic.twitter.com/9bYQR9q5W0
— Wolves (@Wolves) September 12, 2022
So, where are Wolves at right now? Let’s try and dig a bit deeper into the numbers to (try) and get some clarity.
Gold In the Gloom?
When analysing Wolves’ first six games of the season, the immediate concern is that the fixture list has been reasonably kind. Perhaps we ought to have more than our six-point tally accumulated thus far.
We’ve only faced one of the so-called ‘big six’ in Tottenham, and arguably only one other opponent, Newcastle United, could lay claim to even knocking on the door of a potential top-six finish.
And so the defeat at Leeds was disappointing in the sense that Wolves should be finishing above the Yorkshiremen in the league table, and similarly draws against the promoted duo of Bournemouth and Fulham feels like points dropped and opportunities missed.
Those interested in deeper stats like Expected Goals will have noted that Wolves are playing fractionally better than the results suggest. We sit 12th in a hypothetical table that measures Expected Points – a result of taking Expected Goals for and subtracting Expected Goals against.
On a game-by-game basis, our xG (as Expected Goals is often known) suggests we were unlucky not to take all three points at Bournemouth given our dominance and quality of chances created, while there was very little between the sides at Elland Road on the opening weekend.
For just the third time since the start of the 2016/17 season, Newcastle have had 20+ shots in a Premier League away game:
— Squawka (@Squawka) August 28, 2022
? 20 vs. Watford (2021)
? 26 vs. Brentford (2022)
? 21 vs. Wolves (2022)
They got their goal in the end. ? pic.twitter.com/fbUlqcl4Vc
Mind you, Newcastle will have felt aggrieved not to have left Molineux with all three points back in August after creating a whopping 2.10 of xG, which is a fairly hefty tally.
So, the data suggests we’ve been unlucky not to win the points we might have expected to have right now, but there’s no doubt that improvement will be needed with dates against the Premier League’s big guns on the horizon.
