Wolves vs Manchester City

BPL 2018-19 – Wolves vs Manchester City Match Preview

3rd week of the BPL season and we’ve got a good one to open up the matchday! Championship winners and promoted Wolves take on the best team in the country and BPL champions Manchester City. Wolves have not had the type of start they would have liked but an opportunity here to shock the world as they face the red hot Man City side who picked up right where they left of last season playing beautiful, goal scoring football.

Wolves

Really a tough start to the return season in the Prem for Wolves. First they had to play Everton, then Leicester away and now champions City. One of the toughest early season schedules in the league in general. Wolves have so far just picked up one point out of 6 drawing with Everton 2-2 and then losing 2-0 to Leicester. These early signs may have told us that it’s a bit to early for Wolves to consider European football qualification and given that they faced two teams who will be the main contenders for 7th place and only managed to pick up one point out of that says that Wolves may have to lower their target and aim for mid table since getting used to the BPL level may take a bit of time. Coming up against City, Wolves are expected to lose of course it’s very likely that it will be 1pt out of 9 and the pressure may start brewing on Wolves. It sounds unfair, but that’s how life is in the Premier League. You can be thrown right into the fire like that with unlucky scheduling.

Looking at team news and expected playstyle coming up into this game from Wolves we can expect them to be on the back foot surrendering possession and trying to score on counters. It’s safe to say we all know that Wolves won’t have much hold of the ball as City are simply a whole class above team and they tend to almost always dominate games. In terms of team news, wing back Matt Doherty has a chance of being fit enough to play this game after being forced off last week with an injury. Also, we could see the new signing Adama Traore make a start to bring Wolves more of a threat and extreme pace going forward. Other than that, it’s pretty much a healthy Wolves side and they’re expected to start most of the players that started last week, they may make one or at most two changes at the starting lineup against City.

Manchester City

Not much to say about City that people don’t know already. Another season, more dominance. City have started their season in blistering form and they haven’t even had de Bruyne for the most part and won’t have for the next few months and funnily enough that doesn’t even seem to be a problem given how deep City are. They beat Chelsea in CS Final 2-0, then beat Arsenal 0-2 in the league and demolished Huddersfield 6-1. City are already in red hot form and have established as top favourites to win the league again. Coming up against Wolves, mostly everyone expect City to dominate and destroy their relatively talented opponents. Aguero has already got himself a hattrick, Bernardo Silva looks destined for a career season the way he’s played so far, David Silva looked amazing in his return, Jesus got on the scoresheet already and Mendy is top assist man with 3. Oh yeah he’s a left back and he’s been providing a huge threat on that wing when he bombs forward. City are so good at this point where they could bench Sterling Mahrez Sane Walker, not have KDB at all and still win 6-1. It’s just straight up ridiculous.

Tactically, as mentioned we’ll see City dominate possession but it’s very hard to predict on what lineup we’ll see from Pep. He made drastic changes after the opening day win, he went even more attacking minded with Bernardo at RWB against Huddersfield and he could do the same again although Wolves are a lot more of a threat than Huddersfield plus it’s an away game so maybe we’ll see Kyle Walker return into the lineup again and Bernardo be pushed into the midfield. Looking at injuries, of course KDB is still out and Man City were dealt a blow as Claudio Bravo tore his achilles and although he may be a backup, now City could be in trouble assuming anything bad happens to Ederson as their only backup choices will be 19 year old Muric who they recalled from loan or a 20 year old Grimshaw. Other than Bravo and KDB, City have a full strength squad now. We can expect either 3-5-2 or a 4-3-3 from Pep. He’s used 4-3-3 against tougher opponents and 3-5-2 against Huddersfield so maybe 4-3-3 sounds like a more reasonable formation here. It depends on Pep though no point trying to predict and most likely be wrong about it.

What to Expect

Goals is what we can definitely expect, it’s City playing and there’s always goals with them. Wolves can definitely cause a threat to City but essentially you’d have to say City will come out on top given the form that both Silva’s, Aguero, Jesus, Sterling, Mendy and many more are showing. For betting we’d say Man City win and Over 3.5 goals seem like a reasonable and very winnable bet, also Man City -1.5 asian handicap should go through. Wolves will get on the scoresheet but City will put a few past them and win about 1-3/1-4. Expect Aguero to get on the scoresheet too.

Match Odds (TonyBet)

Wolves Win – 12.00

Draw – 6.35

Manchester City Win – 1.25

KICK OFF – 25th August 2018 – 12:30am UK Time