Molineux plays host to yet another game under the lights later tonight as Wolves host Newcastle United in the Black Country. In 2019, Wolves have lost only once at home and that came at the very turn of the year when Crystal Palace played Nuno Espirito Santo’s side off the park. Since then, Wolves have beaten Liverpool, Leicester City, West Ham and Shrewsbury Town in all competitions, scoring 12 goals in the process.
Rafa Benitez’ Newcastle side have only avoided defeat once on the road in 2019. That came against Championship side Blackburn Rovers in the FA Cup, a game they eventually won 4-2 after extra time. In fact, Newcastle’s away form in the Premier League isn’t that promising at all, with just two wins from a possible 12. Rather interestingly, Newcastle have lost five on the road thus far, the same number that Wolves have lost at home.
Be that as it may, since Wolves switched from 3-4-3 to 3-5-2, they’ve only lost to Manchester City. Even then, that result has an asterisk next to it as Willy Boly was sent off early in the first half. All things considered, despite the statistics pointing towards a home win, there’s not that much difference between the two sides this calendar year.
Recently, the most comparable game that Newcastle have played was at Vicarage Road against Watford just before 2019 arrived, so after looking at 2019 so far, we’ll see how Newcastle broke the deadlock in that one.
Five games in
In the opening five Premier League games of 2019, you can see that Wolves have an xG of 6.74 to Newcastle’s 4.71. Benitez’s side have scored six goals so far this year, so they’re batting at 1.29 above where they should be.
On the other hand, Wolves are dwarfing their xG by 3.26, hitting 10 goals in five league games. In reality, it’s 10 goals in three league games after Wolves’ strikeforce drew blanks against Crystal Palace and Manchester City.
