By Ivybridge Wolf
February 1 2025

Wolves v Villa, the original football league fixture from September 1888, and across all competitions its Villa 58, Wolves 44, Draws 35. Wolves have a bit of catching up to do!  Following their 3-1 win against Wolves earlier in the season, Villa arrive at Molineux this afternoon after beating Celtic 4-2 midweek and securing an automatic qualification to the next stage of the champions league. Wolves face up to this game, again licking their wounds after yet another defeat, this time to Arsenal. That loss, the fourth on the trot in the league, combined with 3 points to Leicester City meant Wolves plunged into the bottom three. Todays local derby poses another big challenge to our team and with a teatime start, we will know if our league position has altered at kick off: Leicester are away to Everton and Ipswich are home to Southampton, both 3pm kick offs.

Despite last week’s defeat, the Wolves defense showed signs of improved resilience with Agbadou putting in a very strong performance. Sadly, the attack was generally toothless and lacking in ideas, energy and movement … additionally our passing and ball retention was below par again. The Arsenal red card has since been rescinded but an uncontrolled tackle means Wolves are without Joao Gomes today. We can ill afford self-inflicted wounds from our most influential players. Who will come in for him? Pereira has previously appeared to favour Bellegarde but after another weak showing surely Tommy Doyle has a strong claim to make the starting eleven today? Strand Larsen is out after getting injured early in the Gunners games but he struggled beforehand and his replacement, Hwang, lacked any cutting edge or influence. Who will be up there with Cunha this week? Talking of which, Matteus’s contribution has not been great since coming back from suspension so needs to get things moving a bit and shut out the noise about any departure (or not as the case may be). As for Pereira, the honeymoon now seems to be over and he continues to strive to get Wolves playing in his style. Perhaps he is sweating over the lack of transfer movement as we need new blood, although matters might be different come Monday (fingers crossed!?), nevertheless he might reflect that team improvements could be made by bringing on fresh legs much earlier than we saw last week, they were simply too late to make any impact.

Overall Wolves have won 5 of their last 7 home games versus Villa, that’s a bit of encouragement and I’m sure the crowd will be up for it today. Indeed Villa haven’t won any of their fixtures following champions league matches, however since the appointment of Unai Emery, Villa have W13, D5 and L0 versus sides in the bottom three at kick off. Trends are there to be broken, though I think we’d all appreciate another good defensive effort, as our average goals against so far (2.26 per game) is our worst since 1932/33.

The game kicks off at 5.30pm today and is being screened live on Sky. Like all Wolves fans, I truly hope we can see a more rounded performance, this seems to be a repetitive desire I state every week, but against Villa the Molineux fans will want to see guile, effort and grit – should this be the case they will respond accordingly and vocally against our local rivals. The bottom line is that we all know things must and have to change soon if we are to avoid relegation.

‘Enjoy the match’ if possible! Here’s to 3 massive and important points to Wolves.

UTW

Match Thread: Wolves v Aston Villa 5.30pm KO 01.02.2025

Discussion started by Wolves , 01/02/2025 11:55

Wolves
01/02/2025 11:55

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2025:02:22:13:16:22 by Ivybridge Wolf.

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Ivybridge Wolf
01/02/2025 16:34

The teams are out. Bellegarde gets the nod again in the absence of J Gomes, I’m disappointed. He has to step it up significantly. Guedes is chose over Hwang, correct IMO. Finally Toti in for Bueno, good to see him back, hope his fitness lasts.

UTW!!

Wolves XI: Sa, Doherty, Toti, Agbadou, Semedo, Andre, Bellegarde, Ait-Nouri, Sarabia, Cunha, Guedes.
Subs: Johnstone, Bueno, Hwang Hee-Chan, Dawson, Gomes, Doyle, Forbs, Chirewa, Lima.

Aston Villa XI: Martinez, Garcia, Konsa, Bogarde, Digne, Tielemans, Kamara, McGinn, Rogers, Ramsey, Watkins.
Subs: Olsen, Zych, Malen, Nedeljkovic, Maatsen, Onana, Bailey, Swinkels, Jimoh.

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Andy Pandy
01/02/2025 17:00

I know it's a sign of desperation when you rely on other results but things are desperate. Ipswich and Leicester have both lost. I agree with Ivy, don't know how Bellegarde gets the nod over Doyle. Hopefully he plays a blinder and we eat our words.

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Ivybridge Wolf
01/02/2025 17:04

I was following Ipswich closely in that second half, great to see Southampton getting the winner, and Everton thumped Leicester.

SO ……. All we have to do is win and we put daylight between us and the bottom three. Where have we seen or heard that before.

I’m down the pub tonight, hoping for the very best ….. and that our viewing is not interrupted by the rugby.

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Ivybridge Wolf
01/02/2025 17:40

Bellegarde scores 😂😂

It had to be. What do I know!!

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Ivybridge Wolf
01/02/2025 18:29

A commanding Wolves first half, great goal but it should be 3 or 4 nil. Guedes could have had a hatrick, definitely at least one.

All players playing their part in a great effort.

Will the lack of goals be our Achilles heal again? I bl00dy hope not

Come on lads!

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Andy Pandy
01/02/2025 19:36

Well, as you all know, I never doubted Bellegarde. I just wonder why he doesn't get more starts. With other results going our way, things look a bit rosier tonight but, with Liverpool away next, there's still a lot to do.

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essington wolf
01/02/2025 20:25

Great win and performance today where everybody looked up for it, where has that been all season?
A little nervy near the end till cunha got the second after we wasted so many chances in the first half to kill the game but that's wolves for you they never do it the easy way.
Now we need to keep that performance up.
Always nice to put the deluded villa fans back in their box!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2025:02:01:22:50:00 by essington wolf.

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Ivybridge Wolf
02/02/2025 15:56

A performance at last!

Great going forward in the first half, if only, if only we could have scored the goals from the chances created then we’d have been out of sight at half time. At times we were all over Villa with excellent contributions from everyone in the team, that includes Bellegarde who proved me well and truly wrong! Terrific goal!

Second half Villa improved but then our defence were up to the task, organised, strong and resilient. All of them deserve credit however a mention for Doc who is showing great experience and tenacity, and again, Agbadou, another really strong contribution.

An enjoyable match, nerves certainly playing a part towards the end, but that Cunha finish was brilliant. His little shimmy and dummy prior to the sweat strike was shear class!!

Only 2 points ahead of the relegation pack, plenty still to be done, but 2-0 versus Villa, the overall level of performance and Argyle beating the Albion all made for a great footballing Saturday!!

UTW!

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Andy Pandy
02/02/2025 16:53

I don't think anyone put in a poor performance but Sarabia also deserves a mention. He gets a bit if stick, including from me, but yesterday he was excellent. Long may it continue.

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