{"id":555238,"date":"2020-06-27T00:00:30","date_gmt":"2020-06-27T04:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/?p=555238"},"modified":"2021-12-29T09:36:11","modified_gmt":"2021-12-29T14:36:11","slug":"struggling-aston-villa-host-a-rampant-wolverhampton-wanderers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2020\/06\/27\/struggling-aston-villa-host-a-rampant-wolverhampton-wanderers\/","title":{"rendered":"Struggling Aston Villa Host a Rampant Wolverhampton Wanderers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Struggling <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/clubs\/aston-villa-club-news-analysis-fixtures\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Aston Villa<\/a> host Rampant Wolverhampton Wanderers at Villa Park this Saturday. Dean Smith&#8217;s side need to win but it will not be easy against the Europe-chasing <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/clubs\/wolves-club-analysis-news-fixtures\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Wolves<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>Struggling Aston Villa Host a Rampant Wolverhampton Wanderers<\/h2>\n<h3>Aston Villa Fighting For Premier League Survival<\/h3>\n<p>The repeated failure of the relegation-threatened teams to pick up points has kept the fight against the drop really engaging. Just one point separates four teams from 16th to 19th. Aston Villa do not want to be between the two that drop out.<\/p>\n<p>Finding victories have proven to be elusive for Aston Villa. The last time they won in the Premier League was on January 21, against <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/clubs\/watford\/#\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Watford<\/a>. However, they fought hard to pick up a valuable point at <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/clubs\/newcastle-united\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Newcastle United<\/a> in their last match. Villa will need all that fighting spirit to stand any chances against an impressive Wolves side.<\/p>\n<h3>Wolverhampton Wanderers Gunning for Europe<\/h3>\n<p>Wolves have been mightily impressive since the day they were promoted to the Premier League two seasons ago. Their recent form has been absolutely sensational. Wolves have kept six clean sheets in the last seven games, losing just once in those matches. In both their victories after the break, Nuno Esp\u00edrito Santo&#8217;s men have never looked out of control. It&#8217;s hard to see them losing that control this Saturday at Villa Park.<\/p>\n<p>Currently, Wolverhampton Wanderers sit level on points with <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/clubs\/manchester-united\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Manchester United<\/a> in sixth place. The impressive <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/b561db50\/Raul-Jimenez?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ra\u00fal Jim\u00e9nez<\/a> has scored in both games this month and <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=9a28eba4,1a6f2a66,dcb21936,f9edc384&amp;search=Adama+Traor\u00e9&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Adama Traore<\/a> has provided the assist on both occasions. With <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/a4ac4b8f\/Willy-Boly?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Willy Boly<\/a> back, the defence is looking impenetrable as well. Wolves are going from strength and strength and they will definitely be up there for those European places. Could Wolves make the Champions League next season?<\/p>\n<h3>Team News<\/h3>\n<p>With games coming thick and fast, rotation is inevitable. Aston Villa do not really have that many quality options to call upon from the bench. <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/615ef733\/Ahmed-Elmohamady\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ahmed Elmohamady<\/a> might make a claim for a starting place after his late goal in the last game. <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/90f91999\/John-McGinn?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">John McGinn<\/a> has started all three matches for Villa since the restart, but him being able to start again remains to be seen.<\/p>\n<p>Nuno Esp\u00edrito Santo has made four changes each in the last two matches. He is not one to rotate unless absolutely needed. With a full week at his disposal after the Villa game, one would expect Nuno to pick his strongest XI in this game.<\/p>\n<h3>Prediction<\/h3>\n<p>Another team will fall prey to Wolves as they swat aside Aston Villa to a 2-0 away win.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"UvrUCD8qQjJz8K5JEYRQdQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1181461435\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'UvrUCD8qQjJz8K5JEYRQdQ',sig:'XvllfLj6UzlZNgFTXz5PALr5GuaKyLeZZQ5FkJ-Gov4=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1181461435',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Struggling Aston Villa host Rampant Wolverhampton Wanderers at Villa Park this Saturday. Dean Smith&#8217;s side need to win but it will not be easy against the Europe-chasing Wolves. Struggling Aston Villa Host a Rampant Wolverhampton Wanderers Aston Villa Fighting For Premier League Survival The repeated failure of the relegation-threatened teams to pick up points has [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2794,"featured_media":555267,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,3838,2,1828,2510],"tags":[4063,177,833,1555,136],"class_list":["post-555238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-premier-league","category-aston-villa","category-featured","category-fixtures","category-wolves","tag-2019-20-premier-league","tag-aston-villa","tag-wolverhampton-wanderers","tag-wolves","tag-world-football"],"modified_by":"Matt Lee","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}