Written by BillyTheKid
AFCB Won At Molineux On Last Three Visits
After our win against Liverpool, the Cherries are now three games unbeaten. Our next game is away against bottom-of-the-table Wolves; this game is on Saturday at the usual time of 3 pm. The Cherries have won their last three games at the Molineux Stadium.
Wolves v AFC Bournemouth
Wolves Win
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Draw
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AFCB Win
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The second game of the season at Dean Court against Wolves, their manager was Vitor Pereira. In his first ten league games of this season, he saw his side beaten 8 times. The other two games ended in draws, Wolves were bottom of the league with 2 points. Pereira was sacked; his last game was the defeat away against Fulham.
Wolves appointed the Middlesbrough manager Rob Edwards as their man to replace Pereira as their manager. Edwards was no stranger to Molineux, having played for Wolves for around four seasons back in 2004. He also had spells with Wolves as a coach.
His first game in charge was home against Crystal Palace, which ended with a 0-2 defeat. In his other home games, they lost 0-1 against Nottingham Forest, 1-4 to Manchester United and 0-2 against Brentford. There has only been one win, and that was 3-0 against West Ham. Edwards team’s first draw was 0-0 against Newcastle United, which was in the last two home games.
Away, Edwards side lost 1-0 against Aston Villa, 2-1 to both Arsenal and Liverpool. Drew 1-1 with Manchester United and Everton, and in their last game lost to Manchester City 2-0. Since he has been in charge at Molineux, Edwards team has P 12, won 1, drawn 3, lost 8 and has 6 points. After 23 games, the Wolves have 8 points.
The last time our two sides met at the Molineux Stadium was in November 2024. It saw Justin Kluivert convert 3 penalties, the first time this had been done for 67 years in the top league, all from fouls on Evanilson. Our other scorer was Milos Kerkez. Jorgen Strand Larsen scored a brace for Wolves, with the score ending 2-4.
In our away games against Wolves, AFCB have W 5, D 0, L 3.
In all competitions, AFCB have W 10, D 5, L 7.
Wolves Team News
Players out injured have been Toti Gomes and Jean-Ricner Bellegarde.
Wolves Player To Watch
Mateus Mane, their 18-year-old midfielder. Just past his 17th birthday in May last year, he was the youngest Wolves player in their Premier League era to come onto the pitch as an 89th-minute substitute at Brighton. At Arsenal this season, he came on as a sub with four minutes to go and gave the assist for the only Wolves goal in the 90th minute. At the beginning of this January, he became Wolves’ youngest Premier League scorer when he scored at home against West Ham. Four days later, he was on the score sheet again, away against Everton. He is the joint leading scorer with 2 goals.
AFCB Team News
The club have made two new signings since our game against Spurs. Goalkeeper Christos Mandas and the player have been reported to replace Antoine Semenyo and Rayan Rocha. Hopefully, no new injuries.
AFCB Player To Watch
Eyes will be on our new signings, who will probably be in the squad if not starting. Evanilson, in his 18 starts and 3 as a substitute, has scored 5 goals. In his last eight games, he has scored 4 goals, but he could have had more, missing close chances. Evanilson won 3 penalties in the away game last season, the first player in Premier League history to do this in the same match.
The Referee
Michael Oliver is the man in the middle for our game. He took our away game with Leeds and our home game against Chelsea.
Matt Stevenson added…
I’ve looked at the last 4 league games for Wolves. They had two home games (W Ham and Newcastle) and two away games (Everton and Man C). Wolves have gained 4 points, which is about right. The xG value for goals scored is 3.49, compared with 4 actual goals; Wolves have conceded 3 goals, with xGc estimating 2.94 goals. The xGs are largely comparable with the actual goals.
Wolves have had 3 different goal scorers (Mane 2 and Hee Chan, Arias and 1) and four players have 1 assist.
The average positions of the starting line-ups are below. The outlier is Man City away, where Wolves were pinned back. In the last home game against Newcastle, there was a belt of players around the halfway line; in the previous one, where Wolves won 3-0, it showed it was a counter-attacking performance.
The following plot compares the summary stats of Wolves and AFCB over the last 4 games. We have had a relatively tough run during this period with home games versus Arsenal, Liverpool and Spurs and a visit to Brighton. Attacking statistics are in AFCB’s favour, being higher in all the metrics. Defensively, it is in the Wolves’ favour, who are ahead in all the metrics.
Possession is fairly even, with both teams having below 40%. AFCB have a higher pass completion percentage. Wolves have created a higher proportion of chances from set pieces, but also have conceded a higher proportion of chances from set pieces.
Your say…
Loyal2Bournemouth said…
Big game for us, arguably more for us than for Wolves (which is weird to say, with them being in the relegation zone).
A win and we can start dreaming of Europe again, and get rid of our awful winless run away from home to boot. Won’t be easy though, Wolves are a (relatively) organised outfit defensively now. – To join the conversation, please click here.
DJ
I have been a writer and website administrator on the largest AFC Bournemouth fan website for almost 25 years. Previously on a now defunct fan network and since 2005 on vitalfootball.co.uk We have been nominated for various fan website awards down the years, however we have always been the bridesmaid…